Anthropology News • September 2007

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K N O W L E D G E E X C H A N G E

O F F T H E S H E L F

GORDON GRAY

TEMPLE U

Incorporating theories and theoretical models from other disciplines, such as linguistics or sociology, is something that anthropologists have been doing for a long time. Reading an-thropology through new theories can lead to new theoretical perspectives on previous work or fi eld sites. It can open new discourses and possibilities and enliven old theories.

In the current, somewhat moribund, period for anthropological theory, it is particularly appropri-ate for anthropologists to delve outside the disci-pline for new and invigorating theoretical models. The two works that I will be discussing both offer new theories for conceptualizing human activity.

Social Solidarity and the Gift Aafke Komter, author of Social Solidarity and the Gift, does not apply new theories so much as re-deploy some classic anthropological theories on the gift to help reconceptualize ideas of social soli-darity within sociology. What makes her work interesting for contemporary anthropologists is that she is employing ideas of the gift for stud-ies within urban, capitalist-based societies. In particular, Komter argues that by reviewing the classic work on the gift, sociologists can gain new insight into four key arenas: recognition of otherness, social distance, motives for solidarity and reciprocity. These new insights not only pro-vide new ways to conceptualize important issues within contemporary capitalist society, but may also point to new models for social activism (al-though she herself does not pursue this).

Komter provides a concise overview of the anthropological literature and theories of the gift, extending the analysis to incorporate fairly contemporary ideas. Her overview of sociologi-cal ideas of social solidarity is not as extensive, though this may be because the book is aimed at a sociological readership. Komter also uses a heuristic definition of solidarity, and there are instances of slippage between the ideas of soli-darity and social solidarity. Komter does perhaps make more of how novel the idea of using the gift to understand social solidarity than might be justified within the anthropological tradition.

The above sounds quite critical of Social Solidarity and the Gift. However, my overall opinion of the book is actually not so bleak. I feel that this is a very useful book not only for its intended socio-

Anthropology of Cross-Disciplinary Theoretical FertilizationCinema & Semiotic: Pierce and Film Aesthetics, Narration and Representation. Johannes Ehrat. Toronto: U Toronto Press. 2005. 670 pp.

Social Solidarity and the Gift. Aafke E Komter. Cambridge: Cambridge U Press. 2004. 246 pp.

logical audience, but also for anthropologists par-ticularly those dealing with urban settings.

Cinema and SemioticJohannes Ehrat pursues a more ambitious project in his book Cinema and Semiotics. Ehrat argues that fi lm theory needs greater philosophical refl ection, especially on the construction of meaning in the cinema. Rather than relying on the “interpretations of interpretations” of philosophical enquiry, we need to begin from understanding the fundamen-tal (philosophical) problems of cinema. For Ehrat, the use of Peircean semiotic theory can provide new answers to those fundamental problems and open new vistas for further understanding of the cinema.

Specifically, Ehrat argues that semiotic analysis can lead to new approaches to understanding three major issues within film theory: the question of truth; the question of the construction of narrative and narrative time; and the question of discovery—of means of producing meaning beyond that of representation. To give one example from this text, Ehrat argues that a Peircean semiotic understanding of the sign is not a case of something that stands for something else—rather anything that is something is a sign. Understanding this frees semiotics from a game of definition and classification, instead lending its explanatory power to understanding deeper levels of meaning. The cinema is not made up of signs to be classified and categorized—cinema is a sign.

There is much for anthropologists to take from this book even aside from its usefulness in pro-viding a thorough discussion of an often misun-derstood thinker. For anthropologists in general, discussing the question of meaning is very useful in expanding our ways of conceptualizing that con-struction. For anthropologists who work within the visual or material fields, this book opens up numer-ous avenues for exploration outside of that of the cinema per se. However, the book is very densely written—some background in philosophy would be extremely helpful. The book is also huge and while the breadth of discussion probably merits the 782 pages, I doubt many outside of the philosophy/semiotic fields will digest the entire book.

These two books offer much to anthropolo-gists. They both eloquently illustrate the poten-tial benefits to anthropology of cross-disciplinary theoretical fertilization. And while both have their faults, they also provide interested readers with new theoretical models. Though, as both authors would argue, we can not take the epistemology and ontology of those ideas for granted.

and interpreted in language classrooms. My own research on English schools in China

hints at both why English has become so popular and also at the place of English in wider discourses of modernity and development. At a large English school in the northeastern city of Shenyang, a teacher gave a lecture to 50 students one night on the topic of “Effective Ways to Learn English.” He told the students that the key problem for most Chinese learning English is a concern with face.

I can’t lose my face. I can lose my blood but not my face. But you always be so modest, you can’t improve your language. So feel free to make a lot of mistakes. In the beginning, feel free to lose your face. Nobody will laugh at you. Learning English is like many times losing small faces, you just need to be confident.

The teacher then went on to talk about the reasons one needs to be confident. He listed the 2008 Beijing Olympics and China’s accession to the WTO. It is time, he urged, to take the oppor-tunities presented. “China is in WTO and in dire need of people who have communication skills. You have to travel around China. You have to travel around the world and have these commu-nication skills, and English is the basic.”

Here the inevitable link is made between English and success: learn English because it’s the language of the future. But the teacher also importantly ties the process of learning English to a necessary breach with Chinese custom. Learning English is a process of self-transformation linked to the wider modernizing transformations of Chinese society.

Why English? The desire to speak English doubles and refl ects linked desires to be cosmopolitan and to be in-ternationally mobile. It allows a feeling of con-nection to what would otherwise be alien and alienating global structures of power and capital. In the spirit of Geertz’s notion of ideology as both a model “of” and ”for,” English is a product of international communication, but also outlines for learners the path to future success: if I learn English too, I’ll be able to buy those things, talk to those people, travel to those places.

Studying the people who study English offers great opportunities for anthropologists to examine the global flows of representations and strategies for dealing with them. But in another sense, turn around is also fair play. Anthropologists have tra-ditionally tried to attain fluency in the languages of communities they study, not only to commu-nicate but also to be free of the stigma attached to the ambivalent position of the outsider. Small wonder then that our informants, like Chinese English students or a Nepali guru, should want to do the same on the world stage.

Eric Henry is a PhD candidate in anthropology at Cornell University. His dissertation research focuses on the conflu-ence between narratives of modernity and English teaching in northern China.

Global EnglishContinued from page 39