response to McKinnon

Response to McKinnon Author(s): Mary Weismantel Reviewed work(s): Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp. 706-709 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/646382 . Accessed: 05/08/2012 16:22 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . Blackwell Publishing and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Ethnologist. http://www.jstor.org 694-695), she has resurrectedyet another version of the (nature/culture)opposition she has set out to criticize. She does this despite her own evidence that Western ideas of kinship are just as materialist-l inked to blood and biology, if not food (pp. 688, 690, 693-694)-as Zumbagua ideas of kinship are also logocentric, even though the authority of words to constitute kinship is socially diffuse rather than jurally singular (pp. 694, 696). Such an analysis skews her understanding of both societies and, far from seeing either society's kinship "in its own terms," places them in a relationalframeworkthat replicates the nature/culturedistinction in yet another guise. Third, this approach also affects her understanding of the rationale for adoption-making it possible for her to fall back upon a universal functionalist explanation of the raison d'etre of Zumbagua kinship. Weismantel asserts that Zumbagua people shape their system of kinship in the way they do "in order to survive" (p. 687) on the impoverished periphery of the capitalist world system (pp. 687, 690, 697). Yet survival on the impoverished periphery can hardly account for the specificity of Zumbagua kinship theory, since an incredibly diverse range of kinship theories exists on the "impoverished periphery."With such an explanation we are again at a great distance from understandingZumbagua kinship "as a theory and a practice in its own right"(p. 687). Indeed, the reader longs for a more extensive analysis of indigenous kinship theory and practice. It is only as she draws toward the conclusion of her article that Weismantel begins not only to analyze Zumbagua ideas about shared food (p. 695) and expended time and effort (pp. 696-697) but also to outline the complex indigenous social hierarchy (p. 698) within which the logic of Zumbagua adoption could be profitablyexplored. Understandingthe logic of food, time, and effort in the context of this indigenous social hierarchy (including how this hierarchy intersects with the world system) would yield more clues to the meaning of Zumbagua adoption than any generic theory of survival. It is with some relish that I look forward to Weismantel's continuing development of these more gustatory aspects of kinship theory. references cited Geertz, Clifford 1973 The Interpretationof Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Sahlins, Marshall D. 1976 Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schneider, David M. 1968 American Kinship:A CulturalAccount. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Turner,Victor 1967 The Forestof Symbols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. response to McKinnon MARY WEISMANTEL-Occidental College In "Nourishing Kinship Theory" Susan McKinnon exposes her family loyalties as one of Schneider's intellectual kin: symbolic anthropologists who have bui t a substantial body of work on foundations established by the University of Chicago scholar. Whether or not McKinnon feels a need to "rescue kinship from its post-Schneiderian demise" (Carsten 1995:224), her recipe for reinvigorating kinship studies is clear: more analyses of indigenous cultures in the tradition of Schneider, Turner, and Geertz. But changes in anthropology and the world make this approach untenable. Marilyn Strathern'slong-cherished ambition to "write a counterpart to David Schneider's American Kinship"proved impossible: not only had postmodern English 706 american ethnologist the modernantithesisbetweennatureandculture,butSchneider'sapproach thought"flattened" itself no longerseemed adequate(Strathern1992:4). Forthose of us who work outside the metropolis,othercomplicationsawait.Postcolonia"native"scholarshaveassailedthe political and philosophicaltenetsof traditionalethnographyfornearlya generation,fromDeloria(1969) and Asad (1973) to Trouillot(1991) and Visweswaran(1994).At the same time, fieldworkers arrivingin placesonce knownas treasure-housesof culturalexotica-Guatemala, Peru,Haiti, andwritein responseto urgent Chiapas-have beencompelledto abandonthe studyoftradition politicalcrises,or else risk"missingthe revolution"altogether(Starn1992). In"MakingKin"my ambitionwas to offera directionfor kinshipstudiesin the lightof these several challenges by interposinga dialectical third term between the two extremes of thatmediatesmetaphoricaland a historicalmaterialism essentialismand social constructivism: physicalrealities.Thisgoal is loston McKinnon,whose spiriteddefenseof symbolicanthropolfromthe ogy collapses all otherpositionsinto a single inimicalmaterialismindistinguishable crudestbiologicaldeterminism. Symbolicanthropologyhas not neglectedto "explorethe materialnatureof symbols"(p. 705), but,rather,has relegatedthe physicalworldto a set of rawmaterialsto be manipulated. The conceptualizationof natureas a passiveresourceto be workedupon by culturehas been aptlydescribedas capitalist(Haraway1983), as patriarchal(Blochand Bloch 1980), and as a residueof colonial history(MacCormack1980); in any case, the notion is historicallyand culturallyspecificand predicatedon both inequalityand exploitation. A worse alternativeto symbolic anthropologyis essentialismor biologism, effectively summarizedby McKinnonas a model in which cultureis epiphenomenaland the material world real and unchanging(p. 705). This vision fails to recognizethe instrumentalpower of language,which is farfromepiphenomenalto the humanexperience;nor is the materialityof humanlifeuniversalbut,rather,highlyspecifiedby race,class,gender,nationality,and history itself. Eachof these two visionsof the worldstripsautonomyand causalityfromonly one side of the nature/cultureequation, and thereby privilegesthe other:either the active human will defines a passivenaturalworld, or a priorand fixed biologycreatesan essence that cultural creativitycan adornbutnotalter.Thisstaticmodelmustbe replacedwitha dialecticalapproach in which both physicaland symbolic realmshave relativeautonomy,yet act reciprocallyon one anotherovertimeinthe creationof historicallyspecificrealities.Itisthisformof materialism (firstdescribedin Marx's"Economicand PhilosophicManuscriptsof 1844" [1978])-not the vulgardeterminismthat anthropologistsoften associatewith the term-for which I argue in "MakingKin." hI fact, the crucial distinctionbetween the biologicaland the materialis elided in much currentscholarship.InJudithButler'sGenderTrouble(1990),forexample, a feministcritique of essentialismbecomes a wholesale attackon materialismin all forms(see Wade 1993 for a discussionof the verysimilarhistoryof writingaboutrace).Butscholarswho studythe lives of poormothersknowthatfeministtheorymustconfrontthe materialconstraintsandthe physical pleasuresthatshapewomen's lives, as well as the fluidityof genderitself(e.g., Peacock1991; Scheper-Hughes1992; Scrimshawand Cosminsky1991; Williams1994). Theemphasison workand time that undergirdsthe Zumbaguakinshipsystemexposes the materialbasesof social reproduction.Parentingis a longandoftencollectiveprocessby which a helplessandprelinguisticinfant-not even humanin theAndeandefinitionof the concept-is shepherdedpastthe illnessesthatkill thousandsof indigenouschildreneach yearto become, first,a Quichua-speaking subjectand, later,a parent.Inthiscontextthe physicalbondbetween parentand child is not characterizedin the essentialist(andoddly nonphysical)termsof an involuntarygeneticconnectionthatexistseven if undiscovered,but,rather,thisbond is forged throughfarmoresensuousconnectionscreatedthroughtaste,smell, and touch.The purchase making kin 707 of foods with scarcefunds,the giftof warmclothingin a cold climate,the intimatefamiliarity withanother'sbodythatcomes fromsleeping,bathing,andeatingtogetherinthe close quarters of a one-roomhouse:these arethe materialbasesof kinshipin Zumbagua. IndigenousAndeancultureis knownethnographicallyfor its own kindof genderbending, in which work is genderedbut both men and women do male and femaletasks(Allen1988). InZumbaguathe workof reproductionitselfrevealsa similarflexibility:the biologicalcapacity to bearchildrenis neithera prerequisitefor,nora guaranteeof, the abilityto become a mother. This indigenousSouthAmericanfreedomfromsome of the limitationsof both sex and age revealsthe socialandpatriarchal rootsof archetypalfeminineproblemsconsidered"biological" in the UnitedStates:the entrapmentof youngwomen by repeatedpregnancies,the tickingof olderwomen's"biologicalclocks."Thisfreedomdoes not resultfromthe triumphof inventive as a lifelongprocess fantasyovermundanephysicalrealitybutfromunderstanding reproduction thatshapesboththe bodies and the social identitiesof those involved. Finally,McKinnontakes me to task for framingmy discussionof Zumbaguakinshipwithin the impoverishedand peripheralpositionof the parish.As she argues,economic marginalityis hardlyuniqueto the Andesand thus cannotexplainthe specificityof parishculture(p. 706). Yet the culturalsingularityof the conversationbetween young Iza and the nurseshould not preventus fromseeing it as representativeof attacksmounteddailythroughoutthe continent againstthe rightof poorpeople to raisetheirchildrenas they please or as they must(Williams 1994:348).Inthiscountry,too, attackson poormothersescalateeven as I write.InCalifornia, for example, GovernorPete Wilson launchedhis presidentialcampaignwith the statement: "Wemustdiscouragefromhavinga childthosewho lackthe maturity,the emotionalcapacity, and financialresourcesto functionas parents"(Wilson1995:13).In"MakingKin"my correlation of events in LosAngeleswith the rhetoricof stateemployees in Ecuadorand the kinship strategiesof Zumbaguafamilydoes indeedreplacedetailsaboutthe "complexindigenoussocial hierarchy"(p. 706). Butthe social hierarchythatstructuresZumbaguakinshipis not circumscribed by indigenousculture. Rather,Zumbaguasocial practice is constitutedthrougha dynamicand conflictualintersectionwith a nationaland global politicaleconomy, and with nonindigenousculturalsystems structuredby a "complex social hierarchy"of their own. Heloisa'sabilityto become a motherand youngIza'swillingnessto feed an orphanare partof a well-establishedand indigenouscultureof accommodationand resistanceto the predations of capitalistsociety.To McKinnon(p. 706) my argumentthatthe constantstrugglefor survival is key to understanding Zumbaguasocial practicecontradictsthe effortto define it as a theory andpracticein itsown right.Butin factthe reverseistrue.Withoutan awarenessof the multiple forcesthreateningboththe independenceand physicalexistenceof the people of the parishfromthe SocialDarwinismof the Ecuadorian bourgeoisie(Weismantel,in press)to erodingsoils andthe disappearanceof wage work-it is impossibleto graspthe delicacyandthe strengthof Zumbaguaculture. references cited Allen, Catherine 1988 The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Washington, DC: Smithsonian University Press. Asad, Talal 1973 Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter. London: Ithaca Press. Bloch, Maurice, and Jean H. Bloch 1980 Women and the Dialectics of Nature in Eighteenth-CenturyFrench Thought. In Nature, Culture and Gender. Carol MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern, eds. Pp. 25-41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Butler,Judith 1990 Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York:Routledge. 708 american ethnologist Carsten, Janet 1995 The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness among Malays in Pulau Lagkawi.American Ethnologist22:223-241. Deloria, Vine 1969 Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. New York:MacMillan. Haraway, Donna 1983 Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic, Part 1: A Political Physiology of Dominance. In The Signs Reader:Women, Gender and Scholarship. ElizabethAbel and EmilyK.Abel, eds. Pp. 123-1 38. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacCormack, Carol P. 1980 Nature, Cultureand Gender: A Critique. In Nature, Culture and Gender. Carol MacCormack and Marilyn Strathern,eds. Pp. 1-24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marx, Karl 1978 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In The Marx-EngelsReader. 2nd ed. Robert C. Tucker, ed. Pp. 66-125. New York:W. W. Norton. Peacock, Nadine 1991 Rethinkingthe Sexual Division of Labor: Reproduction and Women's Work among the Efe. In Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era.Micaela di Leonardo, ed. Pp. 339-360. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 1992 Death without Weeping: The Violence of EverydayLifein Brazil. Berkeley:Universityof California Press. Scrimshaw, Mary, and Sheila Cosminsky 1991 Impact of Health on Women's Food-Procurement Strategieson a Guatemalan Plantation. In Diet and Domestic Life in Society. Anne Sharman, Janet Theophano, KarenCurtis, and Ellen Messer, eds. Pp. 61-90. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Starn, Orin 1992 Missing the Revolution:Anthropologists and the War in Peru. In RereadingCu turalAnthropology. George E.Marcus, ed. Pp. 1 52-180. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Strathern,Marilyn 1992 After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph 1991 Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness. In RecapturingAnthropology: Working in the Present. Richard G. Fox, ed. Pp. 17-44. Sante Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Visweswaran, Kamala 1994 Fictions of Feminist Ethnography.Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press. Wade, Peter 1993 "Race,"Nature and Culture. Man 28:1 7-34. Weismantel, MaryJ. In press Chidrenand Soup, Men and Bulls:Meals and Time forZumbagua Women. Food and Foodways 6(2). Williams, Brett 1994 Babies and Banks: The Reproductive Underclass and the Raced, Gendered Masking of Debt. In Race. Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek, eds. Pp. 348-365. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Wilson, Peter 1995 State of the State Address. Speech delivered by Governor of California in Sacramento, January8. making kin 709