Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What Is Anthropology That Multiculturalists Should Be
Mindful of It?
Author(s): Terence Turner
Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 411-429
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Anthropology and Multiculturalism:
What is Anthropology That
Multiculturalists Should Be
Mindful of It?
Terence Turner
DepartmentofAnthropology
University of Chicago
Anthropologists have been doing a lot of complaining that they are being
ignored by the new academic specializations in "culture," such as cultural
studies, and by both academic and extra-academicmanifestations of "multiculturalism." Few anthropologists, however, appear to have made the effort to
comprehend the reasons for that indifference from the standpoint of what
multiculturalistsare trying to do, and fewer still have taken an active part in the
discussions surroundingmulticulturalism.Most of us have been sitting around
like so many disconsolate intellectualwallflowers, waiting to be asked to impart
our higher wisdom, and more than a little resentful that the invitations never
come.
Culture as Anthropological Theory versus Culture as Identity Politics:
A Dialogue of the Deaf?
The term multiculturalismhas come to be used primarily in connection
with demands on behalf of black and other minority groups for separate and
equal representation in college curriculums and extra-academic cultural programs and events. It has also assumedmore general connotations as an ideological stance towards participation by such minorities in national "cultures"and
societies, and the changing natureof national and transnationalcultures themselves. As a code word for minority demands for separate recognition in academic and other cultural institutions, multiculturalismtends to become a form
of identity politics, in which the concept of culture becomes merged with thatof
ethnic identity. From an anthropological standpoint, this move, at least in its
more simplistic ideological forms, is fraughtwith dangers both theoretical and
CulturalAnthropology 8(4):411-429. Copyright ? 1993, American Anthropological Association.
411
412 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
practical. It risks essentializing the idea of culture as the propertyof an ethnic
group or race; it risks reifying cultures as separateentities by overemphasizing
theirboundednessandmutualdistinctness; it risks overemphasizingthe internal
homogeneity of culturesin termsthatpotentially legitimize repressivedemands
for communal conformity;and by treatingcultures as badges of group identity,
it tends to fetishize them in ways that put them beyond the reach of critical
analysis-and thus of anthropology.
With these risks, however, go importanttheoretical and political possibilities. Multiculturalistsmay claim to stand for a liberating recognition of the de
facto heterogeneity of the cultural and ethnic makeup of contemporarymetropolitan societies, and to call for a critical retheorizing of the relation of culture
and political society that would accommodate,ratherthan ignore or repress, the
multiplicity of identities and social groups comprised by such societies. Multiculturalism,in this form, becomes a vantage point for unique critical insights
into the nature of contemporarynational cultures, as well as currentdevelopments and transformations of culture associated with transnationaldevelopments in media technology, commodity consumption, and other political and
economic changes. Multiculturalistthinking of all kinds has been importantly
associated with both intra-and extra-academic social activism aimed at reversing the prevailingculturaldevaluationof ethnic and otherminorities.This activism has in turntaken its place as an importantmode of contemporarystruggle
against the continuing social and political oppression of such groups.
There are a number of ways that anthropologists could contribute, both
constructively and critically, to multiculturalist thinking and practice, and a
numberof ways also thatthey might expand their own theoreticaland practical
horizons by doing so. Any useful interventionby anthropologistsin multiculturalist discourse, however, must begin with the realization that multiculturalists
use the term culture in different ways, and for different purposes, than anthropologists. Multiculturalism,unlike anthropology, is primarily a movement for
change. To the extent that it has developed a theoretical analysis, it is primarily
a conceptual frameworkfor challenging the culturalhegemony of the dominant
ethnic group (or the dominantclass constitutedalmost exclusively by thatethnic
group) in the United States and the United Kingdom' by calling for equal recognition of the cultural expressions of nonhegemonic groups within the educational system. Culture,for multiculturalists,then, refers primarilyto collective
social identities engaged in struggles for social equality. For multiculturalism,
culture is thus not an end in itself (whether as an object of theoreticalresearch
or teaching) but a means to an end, and not all aspects of cultureas conceived by
anthropologists are relevant to the achievement of that end.
Much of the misunderstanding, mutual indifference, and resentment between multiculturalistsand anthropologists springs from this basic difference.
Anthropology and its various concepts of culture are not principallyoriented towardsprogramsof social change, political mobilization, or culturaltransformation. As anthropologistsprotestthat they are being ignored by multiculturalists,
therefore, they should first ask themselves the hard question of precisely what
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 413
they and their theories of culture have to contributeto the multiculturalistproject of educational reform and, more broadly, to social, political, and cultural
transformation.What use are our notions of culture (say, Tylor's encyclopedic
inventory,Benedict's configurations,Levi-Strauss's structures,Chicago's erstwhile neo-Parsoniansystems of symbols and meanings, or Harris's reductionto
protein) to socially and culturallymarginalizedminorities struggling to redefine
and revalorize their collective identities? Certainaspects of the concept of culture originally developed by anthropologists (such as the distinction of culture
and race) are unquestionably relevant to multiculturalistpositions, but for the
most partthese have by now been assimilated into the common sense of AngloAmerican culture in the form of vulgar cultural relativism, according to which
all culturaltraditions are regardedin principle as equally valuable. Apart from
making ideological use of this broadly "anthropological"notion of cultural relativism as an ideological weapon against Eurocentrism,however, multiculturalism remains essentially unconcerned with culture in any of its usual
anthropologicalsenses.
Contradictory Multiculturalisms, Contradictory Anthropologies:
Critical and Difference Approaches to Culture
The question is, should it be so conceived? This translatesinto the question
of what anthropologicalnotions of culture might contributeto a political movement for culturalempowerment like multiculturalism.Before this question can
even be addressed,one must specify which multiculturalisman anthropologist
might wantto contributeto. As alreadynoted, therearecontradictorytendencies
within contemporaryAnglo-American multiculturalism,which may be grouped
for convenience under two headings that we may call critical multiculturalism
and difference multiculturalism.2
Criticalmulticulturalismseeks to use culturaldiversity as a basis for challenging, revising, and relativizing basic notions and principles common to
dominantand minority cultures alike, so as to constructa more vital, open, and
democraticcommon culture. Critical multiculturalismin this sense is well represented by the Statement of Principles of Teachers for a Democratic Culture:
Whereasa few short years ago institutionsof highereducationwere exclusive
citadelsoften closed to women,minorities,andthe disadvantaged,
todayefforts
are being madeto give a far richerdiversityof Americansaccess to a college
education.Reformsin the contentof the curriculumhavealso begunto makeour
of ournation'sdiversepeoplesandbeliefs andto
classroomsmorerepresentative
providea moretruthfulaccountof our historyandculturalheritage.... It is our
view thatrecentcurricularreformsinfluencedby multiculturalism
andfeminism
havegreatlyenrichededucationratherthancorruptedit. It is ourview as well that
the controversiesthathave been provokedover admissionsandhiringpractices,
thesocialfunctionsof teachingandscholarship,andthe statusof suchconceptsas
objectivityandideologyaresigns of educationalhealth,not decline....
Whatdoes the notionof a "democraticculture"meanandhow does it relate
to education?In our view, a democraticcultureis one that acknowledgesthat
criteriaof valuein artarenot permanently
fixedby traditionandauthority,butare
414 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
subject to constant revision. It is a culture in which terms like canon, literature,
tradition,artistic value, common culture, and even truthare seen as disputed rather
than given. This means not that standardsfor judging art and scholarship must be
discarded, but that such standardsshould evolve out of democratic processes in
which they can be thoughtfully challenged. [Teachers for a Democratic Culture
1992:67-70]
In sharp contrast to critical multiculturalism is the multiculturalism of the
cultural nationalists and fetishists of difference, for whom culture reduces to a
tag for ethnic identity and a license for political and intellectual separatism. This
is the stereotype of multiculturalism that has been touted by neoconservative
critics of "political correctness" in academia, who apart from their other distortions have described multiculturalism as if it were a homogeneous set of ideas
and attitudes. There is no denying, however, that some participants in the multiculturalist debates have adopted positions approximating this stereotype of
difference multiculturalism; these positions have aroused more honest concern
and more trenchant criticism on the Left than on the Right. Todd Gitlin, for example, sees difference multiculturalism as a symptom of the disarray of the Left:
The academic left has degenerated into a loose aggregation of margins-often
cannibalistic, romancing the varieties of otherness, speaking in tongues.
In this new interest-grouppluralism, the shopping center of identity politics
makes a fetish of the virtues of the minority, which, in the end, is not only
intellectually stultifying but also politically suicidal. It creates a kind of parochialism in which one is justified in having every interest in difference and no interest
in commonality. One's identification with an interest group comes to be the first
and final word that opens and terminatesone's intellectual curiosity. As soon as I
declare I am a Jew, a black, a Hispanic, a woman, a gay, I have no more need to
define my point of view ....
If America's multiculturalismmeans respect for actual difference, we should
uphold and encourage this reality against the white-bread, golden-arch version of
Disneyland America.
On the other hand, if multiculturalismmeans there is nothing but difference,
then we must do everything we can to disavow it. We cannot condone the creation
by the Left of separateculturalreservations on which to frolic. [Gitlin 1992:188189]
Katha Pollitt criticizes feminist approaches predicated on inherent biological,
psychological, or cultural differences between women and men, which she
lumps under the term difference feminism in terms that she suggests are equally
applicable to difference multiculturalism:
For its academic proponents ... difference feminism is a way to carve out a safe
space in the face of academia's resistance to female advancement. It works much
like multiculturalism, making an end run around a static and discriminatory
employment structureby creating an intellectual niche that can be filled only by
members of the discriminated-againstgroup. And like other forms of multiculturalism, it looks everywhere for its explanatory force-biology, psychology, sociology, cultural identity-except economics. The difference feminists cannot say
that the differences between men and women are the result of their relative
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 415
economicpositionsbecauseto say thatwould be to move the whole discussion
out of the realmof psychologyandfeel-goodculturalprideandinto the realmof
a toughpoliticalstruggleoverthedistributionof resourcesandjusticeandmoney.
[Pollitt 1992:806]
What Gitlin calls the "romancing of otherness"- essentially the reification of semiotic contrasts at the level of cultural (or anthropological)texts into
social/political oppositions involving inequalities of power-is a besetting vice
of much of what passes for "theory"in the trendierand less critical contemporary forms of cultural and multiculturalstudies. As a form of reification or romantic essentialism, it presupposesthe abstractionof cultural phenomenafrom
their real social and political-economic contexts (as Pollitt trenchantly observes), leaving the social and political significance of the "difference"as a vacuum to be filled by the cultural theorist. This exercise yields an intellectual
pseudopolitics thatimplicitly empowers the theorist while explicitly disempowering real culturalsubjects.It also rendersinvisible the common groundsof cultural continuity and identity which alone render cultural and social differences
meaningful in real culturaland political practice. Surely this is a point to which
anthropology should be able to contributeboth substantively and critically to a
demystified "respect for actual difference," in Gitlin's terms. To do so, however, anthropology must come to terms with some of its own internal differences, both old and recent.
Anthropology, like multiculturalism,is of course far from homogeneous in
its approachto culture. Much anthropological thinking about culture has been
uncritical in ways analogous to difference multiculturalism.One might include
under this head the chronic anthropological tendency, born as much from the
practice of intensive fieldwork as from theory, to focus on cultures as discrete
units in isolation. Also deserving mention arethe tendencies (particularlystrong
in the United States) to treatcultureas an autonomous domain, e.g. as "systems
of symbols and meanings" essentially unconditioned by material, social, and
political processes, and the concomitantabstractionof culturalchange from political or social relations, particularlyrelations of inequality, domination, and
exploitation. Most of the paradigmatic anthropological approaches to history
and change have sharedthis shortcoming,from evolution throughacculturation
to drift and diffusion. One might also add the paradoxicalfailure of those anthropologists most concerned with cultures as symbolic structures or systems of
meanings to produce adequate analyses of such structuresor meaningful constructsmuch above the level of individualsymbols and tropes. (More interesting
results in this area might at least have given textually oriented multiculturalists
more reason to pay attentionto anthropological writings.)
The multiculturalistcritiqueof Eurocentrismhas attemptedto confrontthe
implicit culturalassumptionsembedded in the institutional structuresof education and political power in our society and to integrate a critical exposure of the
social and political meanings encoded in literary texts into its educationalprogram. Given the aporias of anthropologicalthinking on these points, multicul-
416 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
turalistscan hardlybe blamedfor looking elsewhere ratherthanto anthropology
for theoretical models for these aspects of their program.
Historically, on the otherhand, anthropologyhas made importantcontributions to the critical decentering of Eurocentricbiases both in the academic disciplines of social thought and in popular consciousness: anthropological
cultural relativism is a direct ancestorof critical multiculturalism.Notions like
cultural relativism, and the anthropological notion of cultures themselves as
systems of shared forms of consciousness, values, and patternsof conduct possessed in fundamentallysimilar form by all human groups, are no longer, however, the exclusive possession of anthropology. Other fundamental
anthropologicalcontributionsto a more critical cultural awareness, such as the
rejection of the essentialist identificationof culture and race, and the overthrow
of evolutionist notions of cultural difference that held other cultures to be
"lower" or inferior in proportion to their degree of difference from the
hegemonic Westernculture,have by now passed into the common cultureof our
own society and have been incorporatedinto most if not all multiculturalistperspectives.
Anthropology's greatest shortcominghas been its failure to develop these
foundational insights into a socially and historically grounded critical understanding of cultural phenomena. By this I mean a theoretically articulated
awareness that culturalforms are neitherconstructedin abstractionfrom the social existence of their bearers,nor do they merely express, encode, or transparently embody their real social life-world or historical experience. Rather such
forms may misrepresentand conceal crucial aspects of that world, particularly
those involving relations of domination and exploitation.
What might such a critical anthropological perspective have to offer to
multiculturalist thinking? Multiculturalism as an academic position proceeds
from a critical view of the received curriculumas an instrumentfor reproducing
the hegemony of the dominantsocial group. This view is specifically grounded
in contentions that the canonical humanities curriculum and conventional history-teaching approaches embody notions of "high culture" and social relevance that inculcate and reproducerelationsof social and political inequality by
representingthe culturaltraditionof the dominantsocial group as naturallycentral and preeminent. Those of marginalor subordinate minorities, meanwhile,
are unrepresentedand thus renderedinvisible. The focus of the multiculturalist
challenge to these aspects of the traditionalcurriculum,however, has ironically
led many academic multiculturalists,even as they call for a decentering of the
dominant, Eurocentric notion of high culture, to adopt much of its schematic
content as the form of their own, oppositional conception of minority "cultures." The result is that the ideological forms and values of established
hegemonic notions of culture and history have tended to be carried over into
multiculturalist challenges to these forms. Thus, multiculturalist alternative
curriculaoften continue to emphasize the elite aesthetic forms central to the received humanistic canon, like "art,"music, and texts of a "literary"character,as
well as historical claims to outstanding achievement: discoveries, inventions,
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 417
and so on. While challenging the evaluative distinction between high and low or
popular culture as it has functioned in the traditionalcanon to marginalize the
culturalproductions of minority groups, multiculturalistshave nonetheless formulatedthese challenges by revaluing minorityculturalproductionsin terms of
the sorts of aesthetic criteria employed to define the value of canonical "high
cultural"forms of art, literature,or music. The hegemonic Eurocentriccategories (literature, art) in which the canonical notion of culture as high culture is
framed thus go unchallenged themselves.
By contrast, a critical social-anthropological view of culture as collective
forms of social consciousness arising in the context of historical social processes, the humanistic notion of culture in terms of a canon of elite aesthetic
products itself becomes a cultural form in need of critical analysis-analysis
that would point to its function in legitimizing the sorts of inequalities that multiculturalists purport to challenge. A major point of divergence between the
critical perspective of many social anthropologistson culture and much of the
multiculturalist discourse on culture is that the latter continues to accept conventional humanistic conceptions of culturein termsof elite aesthetic criteriaof
evaluation and canonical works, ratherthancritically confronting the way such
elite forms of culture serve as the foundation of the hegemony of social, political, ethnic, and class elites. The result, in anthropologicalterms, can only be rebellion rather than revolution: specifically, the replication of the hegemonic
pattern of cultural elitism through the creation of new hegemonic elites comprised of academic specialists in the revalorizedproducts of minority cultures.
Or again: to the extent that multiculturalistsreduce their programto a mere
demand for a pluralization of canons, with separate curricula for each recognized ethnic group based on its own culture conceived in such uncritical terms,
they only end by ratifying the divisions and inequalities imposed by the social
system they aspire to change. Indeed, they fixate on the natureof those social
and political divisions as cultural differences, thus obscuring their politicaleconomic roots, as Pollitt charges. This amountsto the inverse mystification of
that represented by an uncritical liberal pluralism, which would see equal culturalrepresentation in a multicultural educational programas a cultural "solution" to social and political inequities. All of this bears little resemblance to
what thoughtfulmulticulturalistspokespersonshave been saying (as we will see
immediately below), but it has an undeniable relevance to the implicit pretensions of what I have characterizedas difference multiculturalism.
There are, then, valid grounds on which anthropologists might argue the
critical relevance of their own approachto culture to at least some varieties of
multiculturalist thinking. That they have not done so is largely due to the fact
that relatively few anthropologists actually seem to operate with such a critical
view of culture. In the absence of such anthropological input, multiculturalist
scholarsand thinkershave been supplying theirown critical formulations.Take,
for example, Gates's reply to the charge (summarized in the preceding paragraph) that multiculturalismthreatensto balkanize the nation:
418 CULTURALANTHROPOLOGY
Those who fear that "Balkanization"and social fragmentation lie this way [e.g.,
Roger Kimball, Dinesh D'Souza, George Will] have got it exactly backward.Ours
is a world that already is fissured by nationality, ethnicity, race and gender. And
the only way to transcend those divisions-to forge, for once, a civic culture that
respects both differences and commonalities-is through education that seeks to
comprehend the diversity of human culture. [Gates 1991:36]
Shohat and Stam furtherdevelop the same point:
Multiculturalists are accused of pulling people apart, of Balkanizing the nation,
of emphasizing what divides people rather than what brings them together.
Multiculturalism is seen by conservative writers, educators, and politicians as a
threat because it seems to summon "ethnic" communities to form hermetically
sealed enclaves.... That the currentsystem of power relations within and outside
the United States itself generates divisiveness goes unacknowledged; that multiculturalismoffers a more egalitarian vision of representationis ignored. [Shohat
and Stam n.d.: 14-15]
As Shohat and Stam go on to argue, the "egalitarianvision of representation"
presented by multiculturalism does not imply an uncritical "pluralism" but
presupposes a critical decentering of hegemonic ideological notions of culture:
[M]ulticulturalism and the critique of Eurocentrism are inseparable concepts...
. [M]ulticulturalism without anti-Eurocentrism runs the risk of being merely
accretive-a shopping mall... of the world's cultures-without any interrogation
of Euro-Americanhegemony. [Shohat and Stam n.d.: 13-14]
Nor is this critically decentered multicultural approach a mere theoretically
inert, ideological construct, lacking implications for the conceptualization of
culture:"Polycentricmulticulturalism,in our view, calls for a profound reconceptualization of the relations between cultural communities both within and
between nations,"which, the authorsargue, implies an equally profoundreconceptualization of the internal nature of cultural communities-in short, of
culture itself:
Critical multiculturalism refuses a ghettoizing discourse that would consider
groups [i.e., 'cultures'] in isolation. It is precisely this emphasis on relationality
that differentiates [it from] liberal pluralism. [In contrast to pluralism, a critical,
anti-Eurocentric multiculturalism substitutes for a] discourse of tolerance [one
which] sees all utterance and discourse in relation to the deforming effects of
social power.... [It] rejects a unified, essentialist concept of identity, taken as
the referential sign of a static set of practices, meanings and experiences. Rather,
it sees the self as polycentric, multiple, unstable, historically situated, the product
of ongoing differentiation and polymorphous identifications.... [It therefore
views] all acts of verbal or cultural exchange [as taking] place not between
essential bounded individuals but ratherbetween permeable, changeable subjects.
Each act of cultural interlocution, within an ongoing struggle of hegemony and
resistance, leaves both interlocutors changed. [Shohat and Stam n.d.: 15-17]
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 419
Gates makes essentially the same point: "[Multiculturalism] sees cultures as
porous, dynamic, and interactive, rather than the fixed property of particular
ethnic groups. Thus the idea of a monolithic, homogeneous 'West' itself comes
into question" (Gates 1991:37).
Anthropology's Contribution: Complexity or Theoretical Critique?
A pervasive ground of suspicion and even disdain for multiculturalistnotions of culture on the part of anthropologists is that most multiculturalistsare
literary scholars with no backgroundin social science, let alone anthropology,
and no personal experience of different culturalor social groups. Little wonder,
then, that many anthropologistsdismiss their ideas of culture as overly textual,
underanalyzed, and naively unawareof the various dimensions and complexities of cultural systems, such as kinship, that anthropologists have had to learn
througharduousand prolongedbouts of fieldwork. I quote from a representative
anthropologicalcomplaint:
As well-meaningas the multiculturalists
may be, theirnaivetehas unfortunate
consequences.[Their]conceptof cultureis often simplistic.... Thisoftenshows
thatone can sampleotherculturesthroughbriefencounters....
up in assumptions
[T]heyoftenrely on a... visceralapproach... andgo straightfor whatit "feels
like"to be one of them.
A perceptionseems to exist thatthis empatheticgraspis attainablethrough
short,vivid descriptionsandinsightfulanecdotesdepictingslices of life in exotic
locales....
They commonlyconfuseculturalrelativismwith moralrelativism... [and]
tend to view non-Westernculturesas stable, tradition-bound,
timelessentities,
[which]shiftsus dangerouslybacktowardviewing the othersas beingswho are
profoundlyandinherentlydifferentfromourselves .... Thesenseof the"timeless
heritage"of traditionalpeoples,albeitrespectful,is just a shortstep fromethnic
essentialism... At its worst,thisromanticism
tendsto blurthedistinctionbetween
cultureandrace-a distinctionthatwe anthropologists
thoughtwe hadestablished
severalgenerationsago. [Perry1992:52]
The author is referring specifically to multiculturalist colleagues at his own
campus, but he clearly intends his remarks in a more general sense. I do not
question the accuracy of his characterizationof the views of his own multiculturalistcolleagues, or its applicability to some others. I do question its applicability to the more sophisticated varieties of multiculturalist thinking, such as
those represented by many of the passages I have quoted. As Perry himself
indicates elsewhere in the same passage, noting the preference of his "viscerally" oriented multiculturalistcolleagues for certain articles by Clifford Geertz,
an impressionistic approachto culture that emphasizes subjective experience
and evocation is hardlyalien to contemporaryanthropology.Against this facile
approach, Perry suggests that anthropology's essential contribution is a realization of the complexity of cultures, evidenced by the amount of time, effort,
and discomfort-in short, the fieldwork-it takes to understand them. It is
disturbing,but perhapsindicative of the currentcrisis of theoretical confidence
420 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
in the field, thatthis assertion of complexity (fair enough as far as it goes) lacks
any specific theoretical content. Are anthropologists preparedto say precisely
what, other thancomplexity itself, their discipline has to offer multiculturalists
at the level of ideas?
Anthropology And Cultural Studies
The developmentof multiculturalismfollowed the revolt againstthe canon
in English and American literary studies and the Eurocentriccanon in history
(manifested, for example, by the influence of subalternstudies and the concern
with colonial and postcolonial resistance to capitalist exploitation and Western
hegemony). The development of cultural studies, strongly influenced by the
work of the Centerfor CulturalStudies in the United Kingdom, also formed part
of this intellectual landscape and directly influenced the rise of multiculturalism. Cultural studies is similarly concerned with the subcultures, media, and
genres of representationof groups on the margins of the hegemonic classes and
status groups of British and American society. Like multiculturalism,it represents a decenteringmove in the study and teaching of culture, and the working
concepts of cultureit has developed have had a direct influence on multiculturalism. The two movements have involved essentially the same academic constituencies (mostly English and other modern literatures) and have been
similarly indifferent towards anthropology as they developed their own approaches to culture.
Bearing in mind that both cultural studies and multiculturalism are concerned with culturalaspects of the historical present in the U.S. and U.K., one
may ask what precisely they have missed by neglecting us. Let me quote from
a proposal for a specialization in cultural studies at Cornell University drafted
by a group of graduate students in English literature, with no anthropologists
participating:
"Culturalstudies" as an interdisciplinarygenre of cultural analysis and criticism
... comprehends work on what has been described as the "social circulation of
symbolic forms," that is, the institutional and political relations and practices
through which cultural production acquires and constructs social meanings. Situated at the intersection of social theory, cultural analysis, and literary criticism, it
putspressureon eachof theseelementsin lightof theothers ... [W]orkin cultural
studieshas been interestedin examiningprocessesof culturalchangeandrepro-
duction and the socio-political relationships within which such processes occur.
... [It] involves both a recognition of the role of "culture,"in the sense of "symbolic
constructions," in a broad range of social practices and identities ... and a
corresponding recognition that the analytical tools developed in the study of
literaturecan be useful in (and perhaps revised by) examining radically different,
but related, kinds of material....
Alongside more traditional areas of literary and historical study, [cultural
studies is concerned with] culturalforms such as movies, television, video, popular
music, magazines and newspapers, and the media industries and other institutions
which produce and regulate them .... Often, indeed, the focus of study is precisely
the systematic social relations between or among different kinds of cultural pro-
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 421
duction,whetherwithina single social or historicalcontextor acrossdiffering
contexts.[CornellUniversityCulturalStudiesDiscussionGroup1991]
Note that in this statement culture is nowhere treatedas a reified entity or
a bounded,internallyconsistent domain in abstractionfrom social and historical
reality. Rather,specific culturalforms are taken as the focus, with their degree
of relatedness as components of a single system left open as an empirical question. The emphasis is consistently on the social contextualization of cultural
forms (defined as symbolic constructs) as mediatorsof social processes. Among
the types of processes prominentlymentioned are productionand reproduction,
with a specific emphasis on new forms of culturalproduction,like new media,
as sites of social transformation.There is a focus on historical change and an interest in comparison across historical periods and spatial boundaries. At the
same time, the statementemphasizes the continuing relevance of techniques of
close textual analysis carried over from traditionalliterarystudies.
Theoretically, this is no superficial, touchy-feely formulationof culture as
visceral experience, directly accessible throughthe reading of a few anecdotal
texts. I ventureto say that many anthropologistswould be hardpressed to come
up with as theoretically sophisticated a formulation of the natureof culture in
contemporaryU.S. and British society, one as powerfully contextualized in social and historical terms and as fruitful in pointing to productive lines of research. Let us not fool ourselves with dismissive caricatures: a lot of the
competition is very good and is doing quite well without us. If anthropology is
going to make a contributionto the new academic approachesto cultureemerging out of culturalstudies and multiculturalistcurricula,it will not be by simply
sitting still and waiting to be consulted because we had culture first. Anthropologists will have to engage actively and critically with multiculturalistformulations to demonstrate that they have valuable theoretical points and relevant
critical perspectives to contribute.
Let me give an example of the kind of constructive critical contribution I
have in mind: a critique by an anthropologistof several anti-Eurocentricworks
that have played a foundationalrole in multiculturalistthinking, especially difference multiculturalism.The article is Fernando Coronil's "Beyond Occidentalism" (in press). In the portion from which I shall quote, the works in question
are Said's Orientalism(1978) and Todorov's The Conquestof America (1984).
Coronil arguesthatthe natureof the Eurocentric("Occidentalist")point of view
is at least as problematic as the distortions in Western representations of the
non-Western"Other"(i.e., Orientalism)thathave thus far been the focus of multiculturalist critiques, and from an anthropological point of view should form
partof the same analysis. I quote at length from the passage in which he develops these ideas. A critical approach to the understanding of Western representations of Orientalcultures, Coronil suggests, should proceed by
of humancollecdirectingourattentionto the relationalnatureof representations
tivities, [andthusbringinginto] focus theirgenesis in asymmetricalrelationsof
power,includingthe powerto obscuretheirgenesis in inequality,to sever their
422 CULTURAL
ANTHROPOLOGY
historical connections, and thus to present as the internaland separate attributesof
bounded entities what are in fact historical outcomes of connected peoples....
Perhapsone could take a step in this direction by shifting our perspective from the
problematic of "Orientalism"to that of "Occidentalism."... Occidentalism, as I
define it here, is thus not the reverse of Orientalismbut its condition of possibility,
its darkside (as in a mirror).A simple reversal would only be possible in the context
of symmetrical relations between "Self' and "Other"-but then who would be the
In the contextof equalrelations,differencewouldnot be castas "Other"Other"?
ness." ...
ChallengingOrientalismentailsdisruptingOccidentalismas an ensembleof
representational
strategiesandpracticeswhoseeffect is to produce"Selfhood"as
well as "Otherness."In other words, by OccidentalismI refer to the complex
ensembleof representational
strategiesengagedin the productionof conceptions
of the worldthata) separatesits componentsintoboundedunits;b) disaggregates
theirrelationalhistories;c) turnsdifferenceinto hierarchy;d) naturalizesthese
andthereforee) intervenes,howeverunwittingly,in thereproducrepresentations;
tionof existingasymmetrical
powerrelations.[Coronil,in press:5-6]
This passage is framedin an anthropologicalperspectiveon the natureof culture
formulatedin terms specifically relevant to issues with which multiculturalists
are concerned (e.g., the relations between differentcultures and ethnicities and
the critique of Eurocentrism), and makes a characteristicallyanthropological
contributionto the understandingof those issues. It is a piece of anthropological
writing with specific critical relevance to the conceptualizationand educational
presentation of intercultural relations, which constructively challenges and
deepens theoretical formulationscentral to multiculturalism(and culturalstudies as well).
Like in the programmaticCornell statementon culturalstudies cited above,
but unlike in many more familiar and consensual anthropologicalnotions of culture, Coronil insists that cultural formations must be understood in the context
of their role in the mediation of social relations, particularly "asymmetrical
power relations."He defines culture as constituted by processes of production
of both the self and the other, and calls for a critical understandingof the way
these processes producerepresentationsthatconceal the interdependenceof the
entities involved, reifying difference as othernessand masking the natureof the
entities thus representedas historical products.Coronil thus demonstrateshow
a more powerfully conceived anthropological analysis can further decenter
worksthathave served multiculturalistsas models of decenteredunderstanding,
alteringtheir interpretationin ways that potentially deepen the critical perspective of multiculturalismitself.
Coronil's is a textual analysis, but the same principles apply to anthropological analyses of field data and the presentationof culturalmaterialsin an educational curriculum: when anthropologists contextualize their ideas about
cultureby focusing on the ways culturalconstructsmediate the social processes
and political struggles through which people produce themselves and resist
and/oraccommodateasymmetricalpower relations, and when they combine the
critical decenteringof culturalrepresentationswith the decenteringof theirown
theoreticalperspectives on those representations,then they will not merely have
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 423
a base from which to complain about being ignored by multiculturalists, but a
basis for making constructive critical contributionsto the critical multiculturalist programfor a democratic culture.
Multiculturalism as Cultural and Political-Economic Phenomenon:
Toward an Anthropological Analysis of the New Meaning of Culture
Multiculturalism has appeared under specific social and political conditions and forms partof the response of its creatorsto those conditions. The cultural and political significance of multiculturalism must be understood in
relation to these conditions.
Multiculturalismis one manifestation of the postmodernistreaction to the
delegitimization of the state and the erosion of the hegemony of the dominant
culture in advanced capitalist countries. This weakening of "centers"is part of
a material decentering process grounded in the organization of capital on a
global scale, manifested in the development of transnationallabor, commodity
and capital markets, and corporatestructures,which have reduced the power of
traditional political and social structures to control or protect social groups
within the state. As state structureshave lost much of their power to control social and economic conditions within their boundaries,and the transnationalcentralizationof political-economic power and exploitation has intensified, people
all over the world have turnedto ethnic and culturalidentity as a means of mobilizing themselves for the defense of their social and political-economic interests. The increasing political importanceof cultureas an ideological vehicle for
the new forms of ethnic nationalism and identitypolitics thathave accompanied
the weakening or collapse of colonial empires and multiethnic states, has made
it a favored idiom of political mobilization for resistance against centralpolitical authoritiesand hegemonic national cultures. In this respect, the intensification of ethnic cultural nationalism has overlapped with the rise of identity
politics and subcultures of symbolic resistance among nonethnic (feminist,
youth, and alternative sexual) groups in the metropolitansocieties of the first
world.
Coinciding with, and paradoxically reinforcing, the development of the
new culturalpolitics of resistance to social inequality has been the florescence
of capitalist commodity production and consumption on an unprecedented
scale. This has led to the accompanying growth of consumerist forms of identity-productiondenoted by such terms as lifestyle, life politics, etc. These are essentially culturalforms of self-construction which employ commodities as their
symbolic medium. Culture here appears as the jouissance of the late-capitalist
consumeristsubject, playing with the heady new opportunitiesfor self-creation
that the ever-growing world of commodities appearsto provide. This aspect of
contemporary capitalist reality has also reinforced the historically emergent
sense of culture as a domain of self-creation on a collective scale seemingly liberated from the constraints of normative social and political structures. This
postmodernsense of culturehas in turncontributedto the formulationof the notions of culture employed in multiculturalistdiscourse.
424 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
In all of these respects, culturehas come to serve as the basis both of imagined communitiesand individual identities deemed to be "authentic"in contrast
to repressive, alien, or otherwise "inauthentic"normative codes, social institutions, and political structures.This historical unwedging of culture and society
as political-economic structureshas converged with, and greatly reinforced,the
idealistic culturalism (that is, their abstractionfrom, or avoidance or rejection
of, sociological, political-economic, or other forms of materialist analysis) of
the disciplines and thinkersprimarilyinvolved with multiculturalism.
The meaning of culture,in other words, is currentlyundergoingyet another
of its historical transformations.The contemporaryconjunctureof the global organization of capital andthe concomitant surpassingof the nation-state,the rise
of ethnic and identity politics, the explosive growth of new informationaltechnologies and media, and the florescence of late-capitalist consumerismhas created a context in which culture has taken on new meanings and connotations.
Among the most significant of these is the idea that culture, as distinct from nationality, is a source or locus of collective rights to self-determination.Culture,
as such, becomes a source of values that can be converted into political assets,
both internally as bases of group solidarity and mobilization, and externally as
claims on the supportof other social groups, governments, and public opinion
all over the globe. Culturein these new senses, as a universal category distinct
from, but subsuming, specific cultures,can be understoodas the culturalform of
the new global historicalconjuncture:in effect, a metaculture,or "cultureof cultures"(Sahlins 1993:5).
This social/political/economic/culturalconjunctureis the materialcontext
for multiculturalismas a culturalphenomenon and intellectual movement. It is
a conjuncture significantly different from previous colonial, neocolonial, and
precolonial moments, which provided the context for most anthropological
theorizing about culture. This is why so much anthropological thinking about
culture no longer seems adequateor relevant to what culture has come to mean,
especially for many self-conscious "cultural"groups and movements which
have defined their cultural identities in ways that exploit the possibilities and
implications of the new conjuncture.New ideological and theoreticalpositions
like multiculturalism and cultural studies are attempting to express these new
meanings, often, it seems to me, with more success and relevance than anthropology.
Toward a Convergence of Critical Anthropology and Critical
Multiculturalism: Culture as Capacity and Empowerment
A critical anthropologycould contributea deeper understandingof the relation of multiculturalism itself, and the new meanings and political significance of culture from which it arises, to the social and materialconditions of the
contemporaryworld-historical conjuncture. Here the way is being shown by a
numberof anthropologistsworking with politically and socially implicatedcultural forms such as ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, the politics of reproductive choice, postcolonial consciousness, the resistance of peasant and other
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 425
peripheral groups to domination by centralized political or economic regimes,
human rights and indigenous advocacy work, to name some (but by no means
all) of the substantiveareasin which work fraughtwith critical implications for
multiculturalist thinking is currently being done by anthropologists. By and
large, however, these anthropologistshave not yet taken time out from their specific projects to addressthe theoretical implications of their work for multiculturalist positions and programs. The present essay is essentially an attempt to
formulate in relatively abstract and general terms the import of such current
work.
The critical understandingof the cultural dimensions of contemporarypolitical issues andstruggles thatanthropologistscan provide-and arein fact providing in many specific areas of research-is important,not only theoretically
but politically, for thinkersand groups attemptingto theorize about,or organize
around,the fissive and integrativeroles of "culture"and "identities"in contemporarysocieties. It is specifically essential to a realizationof the implicitly revolutionary nature of multiculturalism as a program of cultural, social, and
political transformation.
In calling for the formal equality of all cultures within the purview of the
state and its educational system, multiculturalism represents a demand for the
dissociation (decentering)of the political community and its common social institutions from identification with any one cultural tradition. (This denial of a
privileged role as the unique idiom of social consensus to the hegemonic Eurocentric subcultureis the point of the multiculturalistprogramthatmost outrages
its conservative critics.) The implications of this demand for the decenteringof
culture(s) from the political system and social community go beyond a mere
celebration of culturaldifferences or of individual cultures for their own sakes,
and beyond even an emphasis on the interdependence,overlapping,andhybridization of cultures with one another.To replace the Burkeanvision of conservative proponentsof a unitaryhegemonic culture as the indispensableconsensual
basis of national political institutions with the principle that the political institutions of the state should derive their legitimation from promotingand coordinating the coexistence of diverse cultural groups, traditions, and identities, in
turn implies the repudiationof the idea that national political viability depends
on any common cultureor even confederation of different culturesas such. Implicitly, it asserts in its place the principle that the promotion and protection of
the universal right to cultural self-definition and self-production in general is
the ultimate ground of political legitimacy. It implies, by the same token, the
elevation of "culture"as a new category of collective humanrights, and defines
it, as such, as a legitimate goal of political struggle for equal representationin
the public domain. Such unprecedented claims imply a recognition of some
common property or properties of "cultures" that make them worthy of equal
protectionand supportby the state and give them a legitimate claim on such support. The specification of the essential properties of culture in general has thus
ceased to be a purely academicconcern of anthropologicaltheoryandhas begun
to emerge as a fundamentalpolitical issue. At this point, multiculturalismas a
426 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
political movement opens back into anthropology, the one discipline that has
concerned itself with such questions. It is here that anthropology should be able
to make a unique and valuable contribution,not only to multiculturalisttheory
and practice, but to the more general issues in the emerging patternof transnational politics of which multiculturalismis but one manifestation.
Even though such generaltheoreticalquestions have been out of fashion in
anthropologyof late, raising them again in the politicized context of the current
debates over multiculturalismand identity politics should give them new practical relevance and cogency, as well as new theoretical direction. As in the case
of multiculturalist notions of culture, anthropological approaches to the question have been divided between, on the one hand, encyclopedic conceptions of
cultures as more or less practico-inertarraysof traits and, on the other, praxisoriented notions of cultureas the realizationof a collective humanpotential for
self-production and transformation.
Thinking of the latter sort is represented by earlier anthropological concerns with such themes as "man'scapacity for culture"or "manmakes himself."
In this type of anthropologicalperspective, the multiplicity and historical mutability of humancultures is significant above all as an indication of the generality
of humanpowers of collective self-creation, thatis, the human"capacityfor culture."Culturesare the way specific social groups, acting under specific historical and material conditions, have "made themselves." The theoretical
contributionof the anthropologicalapproachto culture, in sum, has been the focus on the capacity for culture as a collective power emergent in human social
interaction, and the decentering awareness of specific cultures as historically
contingent products of such collective activity. This anthropologicalemphasis
on the capacity for culture as a level of human potential immanent in but also
transcendingspecific culturesimplicitly decentersthe focus of culturalismin all
its forms (mono-, bi-, and multi-) from a fixation on particularcultures and culturalidentities for their own sakes, to the appropriationof the historical achievements of all cultures for the sake of promoting collective empowerment and
ongoing cultural self-productionin the present.
Two features of the anthropologicalconcept of the capacity for culture are
particularlyrelevant in this context: its inherently social characterand its virtually infinite plasticity. The capacity for culture does not inhere in individuals as
such but arises as an aspect of collective social life, with its concomitantsof cooperative human and social reproduction.Its almost infinite malleability, however, means that there are virtually no limits to the kinds of social groups,
networks, or relations that can generate a cultural identity of their own. The
group can be a "natural"one, e.g. a tribe engaged in subsistence activity, or it
can be a self-consciously formed voluntarygrouping like the generation-,gender-, occupational-, or class-based subculturesof contemporarysociety. Ethnic
groups with self-consciously cultivated culturalidentities of the type that enter
into multiculturalist programs in contemporary schools and universities approximate the latter type more closely than the former, but even small, recently
contacted tribal societies are rapidly learning to reconceptualize themselves as
ANTHROPOLOGY AND MULTICULTURALISM 427
"cultures"for purposes of political interactionwith the currentworld system, in
ways that resemble the identity politics of subculturalgroupings in first-world
societies (Turner 1991). The point here is that multiculturalism in this larger
theoretical and historical context implicitly becomes a program,not merely for
the equalization of relations among existing cultural groups and identities, but
for the liberation and encouragementof the process of creating new ones.
As the conjuncturalforces in the late-capitalist world favoring the development, political recognition, and social valuation of cultural and subcultural
identities gather momentum,the prospect is for the steady proliferationof new
culturalidentities along with the increasing assertion of established ones. What
I have called the conjuncturethus increasingly takes on the character of a
metaculturalframework,bringing into being a metaculturalnetwork of forces,
institutions, values, and policies which fosters and reinforces the proliferation
of cultural groups, identities, and issues in the public domain.
Insofar as the new conjuncturefavors the self-definition, production,and
assertion of cultural groups and identities in general, as distinct from any particularcultural, ethnic-group,or subculturalidentity per se, it acts as a material
vector for the capacityfor culture as a general principle or power. The conjuncture becomes, in other words, a historical vehicle and catalyst not only for the
political assertion and ideological valuation of particularcultures but of the generic human ability and right to create them.
There is, thus, a convergence of sorts between certain materialforces in the
present conjunctureand the relatively abstruseand elusive anthropologicalnotion of the humancapacity for culture, which underlies but implicitly transcends
the various forms of multiculturalismthat have recently developed. It is a convergence, however, that can only be realized if anthropologistsreconceive their
theoretical formulationof the capacity for culture in the more concretely social
and political termsof collective empowermentfor self-productionratherthan as
an abstractarrayof evolutionarycognitive, physical, and social traits.Doing so
would lead anthropologiststo confront the ways the social and political context
of collective empowerment,and by extension the present historical conjuncture
of political-economic forces, may also involve contradictoryforces which constrain, combat, and mystify the capacity for self-production which, in other
ways, it promotes. Multiculturalism,as a movement in supportof the collective
empowerment of all relatively disempowered culturally identified groups,
would thus entail struggle against such forces, including those of an overtly noncultural charactersuch as economic exploitation and political repression.
In such an anthropologicalperspective, then, the ultimate aim of any general policy of multiculturalismwould be explicitly envisioned as the empowerment of the basic humancapacity for self-creation (i.e., for culture, in the active
sense of collective self-production)for all members and groups of society. Respecting and fostering the collective forms in which this capacity has historically realized itself (e.g., as existing cultures and ethnic groups) becomes,
within this more general perspective, not an end in itself, but a means to this
more general end. The multiculturalist movement, within this historical per-
428 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
spective, assumes the role of a moment in the historical struggle for a freer and
more flexible formation of groups and identities based on self-consciously
shared values, orientations, activities, and political-economic positions.
In other words, from the critical vantage point of a conception of culture as
empowerment for collective action, self-production, and struggle, the presently
constituted forms of multiculturalism may be seen as embryonic expressions of
the revolutionary principle that the protection and fostering of the human capacity for culture is a general human right and, as such, a legitimate goal of politically organized society. Anthropology should have a lot to say about the nature
of this goal and what its promotion under specific circumstances might concretely involve. Meanwhile, much as St. Paul revealed to the Athenians the identity of the unknown god they had been worshipping, anthropologists might play
a useful role in helping multiculturalists realize the revolutionary implications
of the course upon which they have embarked.
Notes
Acknowledgments.This paper was originally presented in the Presidential Session
"Anthropology and Multiculturalism" at the American Anthropological Association
Meetings in San Francisco in 1992. JamesPeacock provided an insightful and constructive commentary on the paper at that session. I am extremely indebted to numerous
friends and colleagues who took the time and trouble to orient me to the issues and
literatureof multiculturalism.Kathleen Hall, John Comaroff, Robert Stam, Ella Shohat,
Steve Sangren, and Fred Myers are not responsible for the specific views expressed in
this paper, but it could not have been written without their knowledgeable discussion
and extensive bibliographical and critical suggestions. Jane Fajans gave the manuscript
a careful critical reading which resulted in many changes.
1. I am indebted to Kathleen Hall (n.d. and pers. communication) for a history and
overview of the multiculturalistdebate in the United Kingdom, particularlyas it effects
education and South Asian minorities in Britain.
2. In a lecture at the University of Chicago, my colleague John Comaroff made a
similar distinction between encyclopedic and critical multiculturalism, which has become part of the local oral traditionwithout as yet having been reduced to written form.
Pollitt has used the term differencefeminism to denote feminist positions based on the
thesis that the received social, political-economic, and culturaldiffferences in the status
of men and women are the result of inherent differences that become manifested in a
distinct women's "culture"(passage quoted below). Gitlin's distinction between multiculturalism based on "the romance of the other" and that based on respect for "real"
social and cultural differences (also quoted below) is basically identical.
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