From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: communities
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 00:57:15 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents
Reply-To: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au


In article <BvCE39.2u8@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com writes:

 >    What I'm asking is whether any anthropological research has suggested
 >    *general* features of cultures that make community possible.  That
 >    is, is there any operational definition of "community" that allows
 >    it to be studied across cultures?  In other words, is "community"
 >    as a general phenomenon accessible to anthropological research?

Short answer: no.

 >    Everything I've read has been very culture-specific.

Short answer: yes it is.

 >   But my point is that while I can try to draw my own conclusions,
 >   I would prefer to know what the conclusions are of trained anthro-
 >   pologists who have studied many cultures in depth, both European
 >   and non-European.

Longer answer: Your questions make sense to us because they are framed
within our rules of logic, grammar and syntax, and address issues we
are concerned about within the framework of our own expectations. It
is far more complex than that, but I trust you will get my drift.

They do not make any sense at all, for example, to Aboriginal people
here in Australia. In their own culture such questions do not even
represent the curiosity of a child; they are simply gobbledegook, and
persistent efforts to have people address them as important is always
dismissed as humbug, "properly gammon", while the person may be lucky
not to be dismissed as a complete fool.

That can be very hard for us clever Westerners to swallow, especially
after having been accepted as a PhD candidate, when the informant one
has been referred to as the famous and powerful leader of a substantial
school of intellectuals, who has held up a $500 million project for
the past ten years, appears as a unwashed beggar sitting in the dust,
with an equally unwashed child sitting in his lap demanding all the
attention.

Pow!

The difficult part is for neonate researchers to realise the limits
of their own cultural mindframe, to open the windows through which
the *other* can be accessed. Coming to terms with the Zen *wu* makes
it easier, although that can be difficult in itself.

I do not want to sound elitist, but some people are simply not cut
out to be anthropologists. The existential stress experienced in
facing the *other* can be extremely traumatic, and I would not with
hindsight inflict that on others without counselling them first.

Well, that may be a little away from your original idea, Peter, but
you are beginning to ask questions about how other people's lives are
to be probed, and it is appropriate that you be both encouraged and
cautioned if you wish to do any real justice to your research, and
make it useful.

Again, I wish you well.


Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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Newsgroups: sci.anthropology