Anthropology, Sociology, and Other Dubious Disciplines: Sidney W. Mintz Lecture FOR 2002
Anthropology, Sociology, and Other Dubious Disciplines: Sidney W. Mintz Lecture FOR 2002
Anthropology, Sociology, and Other Dubious Disciplines: Sidney W. Mintz Lecture FOR 2002
2003 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/2003/4404-0001$2.50
Anthropology,
Sociology, and Other
Dubious Disciplines
1
by Immanuel Wallerstein
The so-called disciplines are actually three things simultaneously. They are, of course, intellectual categoriesmodes of asserting that there exists a defined field
of study with some kind of boundaries, however disputed
or fuzzy, and some agreed-upon modes of legitimate research. In this sense they are social constructs whose
origins can be located in the dynamics of the historical
system within which they took form and whose definitions (usually asserted or assumed to be eternal) may
in fact change over time.
The disciplines are in addition institutional structures
that since the late 19th century have taken on ever more
elaborate forms. There are departments in universities
with disciplinary names. Students pursue degrees in specific disciplines, and professors have disciplinary titles.
There are scholarly journals with disciplinary names.
There are library categories, publishers lists, and bookstore shelvings with disciplinary names. There are prizes
and lecture series with disciplinary names. There are
national and international associations of scholars with
disciplinary names. The disciplines as institutions seem
to be everywhere.
Finally, the disciplines are cultures. The scholars who
claim membership in a disciplinary grouping share for
the most part certain experiences and exposures. They
have often read the same classic books. They participate in well-known traditional debates that are often
different from those of neighboring disciplines. The disciplines seem to favor certain styles of scholarship over
others, and members are rewarded for using the appropriate style. And while the culture can and does change
over time, at any given time there are modes of presentation that are more likely to be appreciated by those in
one discipline than by those in another. For example,
historians are taught to favor primary sources over secondary sources and therefore to admire archival work.
Archival work is not really an important activity in
many other social science disciplines. Indeed, the anthropologist who restricted fieldwork to culling what is
in archives would be unlikely to find a very friendly
reception within the disciplinary camp. I think of these
attitudes as cultural prejudices that are difficult to justify
intellectually but strongly rooted and that operate in the
real world of interaction among scholars.
As I am making my arguments within the framework
of a rubric entitled a lecture in anthropology, I thought
it would be appropriate to indulge myself in what I think
of, perhaps wrongly, as one of the prejudices of anthropologists. Similarly to historians but in contrast to most
other social scientists, anthropologists do not think it
amiss to begin an analysis with anecdotal material, snippets of the microworlds in which we all live. And since
this occasion is the Sidney W. Mintz Lecture, I shall
begin with an anecdote about Sidney W. Mintz.
In the founding year of the Fernand Braudel Center, I
invited Sid Mintz to come to Binghamton on February
2, 1977, and talk to a faculty seminar that met under our
auspices. He agreed to come. However, I went farther. I
gave him the title of his talk: Was the Plantation Slave
a Proletarian? He graciously agreed to talk on that spe453
to ignore the existence and importance of other temporalities and spatialities, including Braudels longue duree, the necessary concept if reality is at once systemic
and historical. What we need in our historical social science is to consider what our reality looks like within
each of its possible temporalities and spatialities. And
this is of course necessary whether we are analyzing a
macrotopic such as the history of the modern worldsystem or a microtopic such as the introduction of some
new element into the life stream of some remote village.
Whatever our object of investigation, we need a great
deal more fluidity in our analyses as we move from one
arena to another, from what we like to call the economy
to what we like to call the polity to what we like to call
the society or the culture. There is no ceteris paribus,
for the other things are never equal. We may wish to
ignore for a moment elements other than the immediate
variables we are considering, since we may find it difficult to talk about everything at once. But we can never
do this on the assumption that the surrounding variables
do not impinge immediately on what we are studying.
The whole lesson of the sciences of complexity is that
if one changes the initial conditions ever so minutely
the outcome may be radically different, whatever the
truth of the equations we are using.
This then leads us to the question of methods and of
methodologies. In my own education, I was taught that
there was a radical distinction between what were called
in the jargon of my teachers small-m methods and
big-m methods. Small-m methods were all those practical techniques that we use and that in the past were
used to define disciplines: simulation, opinion polling,
archival research, participant observation, and so on. The
only attitude one can take to small-m methods is one of
complete catholicity. They are simply methods of estimating, capturing reality. They are worth what they are
worth in facing up to the ways in which the world makes
it difficult for researchers to find out anything about the
issues in which they are interested. Not only are none
of these methods intrinsically better than others but no
generally described research issue or site is necessarily
and permanently linked with any one of them. We all
need them all. They all have their virtues and their limitations. And graduate students would do well to become
acquainted with the widest range of these small-m methods. Since I have been discussing them within the framework of cultural prejudices, I call for setting aside our
prejudices. We will be the stronger for it.
But the real question is big-m methods. For example,
should we trust only quantitative or only qualitative
data? Here it is not a question of simply being eclectic
but one of deciding what kind of data is valid. I have
some simple rules that seem to me to cull our collective
wisdom. It is clear that almost all our statements are
quantitative, even when the statements use nothing
more than more or important in their formulations.
And it seems to me that it is always more interesting to
be quantitatively more than less exact. It follows, then,
that quantification is desirable whenever it is possible.
But that whenever encompasses a big caveat. If one
makes serious quantification an imperative and a priority, one risks ending up where the old joke sent us,
looking for the lost watch under the lamppost because
the light is better there.
But there is more to it than that. We have today a
leading mathematician warning us that the qualitative
approach is not a mere stand-in for quantitative methods.
It may lead to great theoretical advances, as in fluid dynamics. It has a significant advantage over quantitative
methods, namely, stability (Ekeland 1988:73). This goes
against one of the main social-science arguments for
quantification, that of reliability (or stability). And this
has to do with what I would call premature quantification. We can only usefully quantify when we are fairly
well advanced in the plausibility of our models and the
strength of our data. Quantification comes in toward the
end of a process, not at the beginning. Indeed, the beginning is preeminently the realm of ethnography and
other nonquantitative modes of analysis. These techniques enable us, in a complex situation (and all social
situations are complex situations), to tease out the issues
and then explore the explanatory connections.
It is qualitative data, not quantitative data, that are
simple. Simplicity, however, is not the goal of the scientific process but the starting point. Of course, one can
start with simple statistical correlations as well. Complexification is the name of the game, and ever more
complex is not necessarily ever more narrative. It may
quite well beand may even better bemore complicated equations, bringing in more and more variables in
a controlled fashion.
It is only at this point of relative complexity that we
can engage in real comparisons, ones that do not combine
the investigated situation of the strange or complicated
or exotic with the presumed truth of the situation we
think we know well. Arnold Feldman, one of the early
sociologists who studied what were in his time called
underdeveloped countries, used to say that, whenever
he gave a talk on the patterns he discerned in his work,
there was sure to be someone in the audience who would
rise and say, but not in Pago Pago. It may or may not
have been true that what Feldman had recounted was
not true in Pago Pago, but what is the relevance of this
caution? The critic may have intended to deny the possibility that patterns exist or can ever exist. But then
why study Pago Pago? Is it butterfly collecting? Or the
critic may have intended to say that Feldmans formulae
were too simple and needed further complexification if
they were to be useful. Or perhaps the critic merely felt
that the organizers should have invited him to lecture
rather than Feldman. Criticism is a crucial tool in the
historical social sciences, but mindless criticism is not.
And that brings me to narratives. Narratives are an
admirably understandable and attractive way of communicating perceptions of reality. To be sure, even the
harshest set of differential equations is a form of narrative, though not the most palatable form. Recently
there has been much attacking of macronarratives. I suppose these critics think that what they produce is micronarratives and micro is better than macro. But of
course the micro is a setting in which the macro manifests itself and one that can never be understood without
reference to the macrosetting. There are in the end no
narratives that are not macronarratives. The only question we have before us is whether the macronarrative
we are putting forward is defensible.
The culture of the historical social sciences that I envisage will not be against theorizing or theories, but it
will be cautious about premature closures. Indeed, the
breadth of its data, of its methods, of its linkages to the
rest of the world of knowledge will be its principal characteristic. Vigorous analysis in a climate of tolerant and
skeptical debate will be what will aid it most. Of course,
I am also assuming that in the next 50 years we shall be
overcoming the relatively recent (only two centuries old)
but deeply rooted divorce between philosophy and sciencethe so-called two culturesand setting out on the
path of constructing a singular epistemology for all
knowledge. In this scenario, a reinvigorated social science, one that is both structural and historical, can provide the crucial link between the domains we classify
as the natural sciences and those we classify as the
humanities.
The adventure of the historical social sciences is still
in its infancy. The possibilities of enabling us to make
substantively rational choices in an intrinsically uncertain world lie before us and give us cause for hope amidst
what are now the gloomy times of a historical transition
from our world-system to the next onea transition that
is necessarily occurring in the structures of knowledge
as well. Let us at least try seriously to mend our collective ways and to search for more useful paths. Let us
make our disciplines less dubious.
Comments
syed farid alatas
Department of Sociology, National University of
Singapore, Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260
([email protected]). 18 iv 03
Wallersteins assessment of the current state of the social
sciences and his call for their reconstruction in terms of
what he calls the historical social sciences would find
widespread acceptance among many social scientists
around the world. Here I would like to highlight how
the assessment of the dubious nature of the social sciences and the prospects for reconstruction depend on
ones position in the global division of labour in the social sciences.
As Wallerstein puts it, the problem of the social sciences is the reconciliation of the search for structural
continuities with continuous historical change. This
would require rejecting the claims of both the nomotheticists and the idiographers concerning the understanding of concepts, variables, and methods in the social
sciences. But this is not the only reconciliation that is
needed. There is the need to reconcile the cultural specificity of concepts with the self-understanding of the peoples being studied. There is something of a cultural divide in the social sciences that can be seen in the very
concepts employed by the various disciplines. The nature of this cultural divide is as follows: Many concepts
in the social sciences originate from a Greco-Roman,
Latin Christian, and European tradition. This does not
pose a problem, as Wallerstein recognizes, if these concepts become universal or plural. A great many concepts
are, however, passed off as universal when in fact they
derive their characteristics from a particular cultural tradition. This wreaks havoc on our understanding of social
phenomena. For example, while religion is presented
as a universal concept, the understanding of what makes
up religion in phenomenological, historical, and sociological terms is often derived from Christianity, resulting
in what Joachim Matthes (2000:98), referring to Islam,
calls the hidden cultural Christianisation of the
Muslim world since it started to think of Islam as a
religion. This raises the interesting question of the
extent to which religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam have been intellectually reconstructed
after the image of Christianity because of the concepts
employed by the disciplines that study religions. Such
concepts include church, sect, denomination,
secularization, and religion itself. A case in point is
a table presenting statistics on church membership in
the United Kingdom in Anthony Giddenss Sociology
(2001:549, table 17.3). However, the religions included
are not just Christianity but Hinduism, Islam, Judaism,
Sikhism, and others, giving the impression that the temple, mosque, and synagogue are all, sociologically speaking, churches. The term church is generalized without the concepts being rendered universal or plural.
What should be considered is the possibility of other
concepts of religious organization that can be derived
from these other belief systems. As long as the study of
religion does not look at its objects as potential sources
of concepts rather than just data, it will remain backward, playing down the objects conceptualization of
themselves and denying the culturally plural origins of
ideas in the social sciences.
I agree with Wallersteins case for a culture of plural
concepts but would insist that the acculturation of concepts be made one of the major concerns of any effort to
reconstruct the social sciences. In many parts of the
world collectively termed the Third World, the
South, or developing societies, social science practitioners and institutions are highly dependent on their
counterparts in the United States, Britain, France, and a
few other nations for ideas, theories, and concepts, technologies of education, and aid and investment in education. This state of what we might call academic dependency is perpetuated by certain features of the global
division of labour in the social sciences: the division
between theoretical and empirical intellectual labour,
the division between other-country studies and owncountry studies, and the division between comparative
and single-case studies. As long as academics in the
john r. hall
UC Davis Center for History, Society, and Culture,
University of California, Davis, Calif. 95616, U.S.A.
([email protected]). 18 iv 03
Wallerstein is to be commended for his continuing efforts to confront social scientists with the stark predicaments we face in organizing our collective activities,
and he is certainly right to point here to the uneven
developments across the intellectual, institutional, and
cultural axes that organize his discussion. Like him, I
am an optimist about developments in epistemology that
will bring each of us, no matter what our particular
methodological commitments, into broader conversations across what once seemed like unbreachable epistemological divides.1 And, like him, I am struck by the
impediments to intellectual work and education posed
by the institutional structures and, to a lesser degree, the
cultures of the disciplines. His utopian proposal to set
the faculty free to regroup under new disciplinary banners thus has a certain appeal.
Yet I am given to wonder whether either eliminating
or organizing disciplines is a promising solution. Consider the problem as one of social organization: Bureaucracy as a mode of organization is historically challenged
these days, and there are many scholarly analyses that
suggest the reasons and implications. Daniel Bells The
Coming of Postindustrial Society already pointed in
1973 to social relationships that would play out as
games between people rather than performance under
bureaucratic regimens. At the beginning of the 21st century, emergent social theories are predicated on concepts
of networks and relationality rather than bureaucracy.
From quite a different perspective, poststructuralists
would tell us, the attempt to create solid categories is
always going to produce anomalies that dont fit the classification scheme. As Derrida would have it, any structure will require a supplement. Transferred from the
realm of text per se to the textual structurations of disciplines, these perspectives suggest the limitations to
any solution predicated on trying to align disciplines
with intellectual coherence or cultural coherence. As
Guenther Roth remarked to me already in the 1970s,
sociology (in his example) is just a convenient umbrella
where scholars come to stand to keep out of the rain.
These brief allusions to the travails of bureaucracy and
classification and the implications of the network metaphor suggest that we need to recast the organization of
universities in fundamental ways. Yet when I look at the
balkanization that can occur in the humanities, beset as
they are by an erosion of coherent rationales of subject
matter and a proliferation of programs, the administrative and cultural benefits of relatively eclectic but somehow strong academic units (departments) in the conventional social sciences looks good by comparison.
Certainly their boundaries can and should shift as in1. In my account, affinities across seemingly disjoined methodologies constitute the domain of the human sciences as one of integrated disparity (see Hall 1999:chap. 9).
tellectual rationales change. But if Wallerstein is generally right in his assertions, neither methods nor subject
matter can be the basis for defining disciplines. For all
the tensions, then, I think there is something healthy
about circumstances that encourage people of diverse
methodological persuasions and substantive interests to
keep watch over one another within academic units
call them departments if you willfighting over hiring, promotions, and tenure.
How, then, to respond to the challenges and possibilities of scholarly networking under postclassificatory circumstances? I will not look at the longue duree, but in
the very near term, several precepts based on experiences
at the University of California, Davis, seem worth elaborating and considering:
1. Topical, theoretical, and methodological course
clusters should be grouped and coordinated across academic units, not within them.
2. Undergraduate majors may (typically) be administered within academic units, but any given department
might consider offering multiple majors.
3. Undergraduate major course requirements typically
should group courses drawn from diverse academic units
to form coherent packages, and the names for these majors need not be tied to academic unit names.
4. Doctoral graduate education should be based on
graduate group degree programs that are not necessarily tied to academic unit names and are subject to
periodic review and reconstitution.
5. Graduate students should be encouraged to complete at least one minor program that brings faculty and
students together from diverse graduate degree programs
according to shared substantive, theoretical, and methodological interests.
6. Graduate course offerings should be designed to encourage enrollment by students and participation by faculty from diverse degree programs.
7. Doctoral substantive examination and dissertation
committees generally should follow the model long practiced at some institutions of allowing committee composition in ways not restricted by program or disciplinary
boundaries.
This very brief sketch can be only suggestive, but I
hope that it advances my general point that academic
reform in the human sciences ought to proceed by encouraging new organizational and programmatic solutions that depend neither upon old binary efforts at classifying nor on efforts to rearrange or transcend disciplines.
t. n. madan
Institute of Economic Growth, A5, University of
Delhi, New Delhi 110007, India ([email protected].
in). 17 iv 03
Cultural-social anthropology is of course unremittingly
comparative in its approach. Considering it as a discipline in all three senses of the term that Wallerstein
outlines should, I believe, seem familiar, although in
Reply
immanuel wallerstein
New Haven, Conn., U.S.A. 31 v 03
I am pleased that the respondents all seem to share my
concerns. There is, however, a yes, but quality to these
responses. Calhoun regrets that my vision of the future
is a replication of the Methodenstreit categoriesa
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