An Ethnography of Alterity

252 Pages·2013·9.72 MB·English

An Ethnography of Alterity: Margins,
Markets, Morality.
David Evans BScEcon, MSc
This thesis is submitted in candidature for the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy
School of Social Sciences
Cardiff University
2006
UMI Number: U584093
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Contents
Abstract i
Declaration ii
Acknowledgements iii
Prologue iv-viii
Chapter one: Introduction 1
Alterity, Ethnography, Evocation 1
Theory and Data: a Double Braid 4
Social Philosophy: a Third Strand 6
Deconstruction 7
Motility and the Fold 8
The Relation 10
Heterotopia 12
Chapter Summary 13
Chapter two: Demoralisation: Ambivalence, Adiaphorisation, 18
Anomie.
Demoralisation 18
A Sense of Balance, a Balance of Sense 19
Adiaphorisation 22
Fragmentation 25
Of Cultures 25
Of Selves 28
Anomie 30
Ambivalence: Modernity and Postmodemity 35
Habermas: Rationalities and Colonies 38
Sorokin: Sensate Culture and Social Change 41
Remoralisation 43
Alterity: a Space of Remoralisation 46
Chapter three: Ethnography: the Theory of Practice and the 52
Practice of Theory.
Alterity 52
Why Ethnography? 53
Binding Ethnography, Binding Alterity. 55
Unbinding Alterity, Unbinding Ethnography 56
Multi-Site Ethnography 57
Tracking Analytic Themes and Indirection 58
Issues and Problems 61
Differing Objects and Objectives 62
Ethnographic Research Time 63
Ethnography as an Experience 64
The Practice of Theory 65
Reflexive Critique 66
Deconstruction: My Analytic Attitude 67
Philosophy, textuality, deconstruction 68
Trace 69
Supplement 70
Difference and Undecidability 71
The Fold and Motility 72
Ethnography and Deconstruction 72
Chapter Four: the Natural History of the Research Study. 74
Beechwood Court: a Retreat 74
Beechwood Court and Access 76
Participant Observation and Beechwood Court 78
In the Field at Beechwood Court 80
Multi-Site Ethnography 82
Recurrent Time Mode 82
Rainbow Rhythms 83
Riverside Real Food Market 84
Trade Direct 85
Shakti Manor: a Retreat 85
WOMAD: a Festival 88
Chapter Five: Theorising Heterotopia: Social Ordering at the 91
Margins.
The Margin/Mainstream Dichotomy: An Empirical Encounter 92
The Mainstream 94
It’s Like Fucking Detroit out There 94
Mainstream Foundations 96
Holding the Mainstream Present: Objects and Meanings 97
The Margin and the Mainstream: Movement and Motility 100
Complexity and Heterogeneity 102
Margins 102
The Mainstream and Modernity 104
Heterotopia 105
Social Ordering at the Margins 108
Organisation 108
Management 109
The Labour of Division 111
Ordering the Organisation, Organising the Ordering 113
Liminality 114
The Fold 115
Modernity 118
Chapter Six: Bringing the Market Back to Morality 119
Moral Alternatives: An Empirical Encounter 120
The Necessity of Money, The Necessity of Markets 121
Dana, Donner, *Do - 126
The Division of Labour: Macro and Micro 127
Macro: Mutual Reliance on the Outside 127
Micro: Mutual Reliance on the Inside 129
Consumption, Extension, Morality 130
The Market: As Bazaar and the Camivalesque 133
The Nature of Transgression 138
The Market: Relations and the Fold 142
Chapter Seven: Embodying Alterity: Incorporation into the Fold 144
The Body as a Project 145
Asceticism 148
Camivalesque 149
Processing Bodies 151
Betwixt and Between 152
Docile Bodies: Running the Retreat 154
Docile Bodies: the Process(ing) of Retreat(ants) 157
Embodied Affect and Collective Effervescence 161
Extension, Embodiment and the Fold 169
Chapter Eight: Practices and Processes of Attachment and 171
Detachment.
Detachment 172
Attachment 174
BWC: the Possibilities of Community 174
Other Sites: Other Attachments 178
Ritual 182
Giving it Stick: the Enactment of Community 184
Meal times and the Failed Promise of Community 186
From Attachment to Detachment 188
Chapter Nine: Summary and Discussion. 195
Summary of Analysis Chapters 196
Alterity 203
Demoralisation and Subversion 208
Resisting Postmodernism: the Importance of the Social 216
Bibliography 222
Appendix A 233
Appendix B 239
Abstract
The focus of this thesis is alterity. More accurately, the possibilities of an alternative
to the predicament of demoralisation (Fevre, 2000). Demoralisation is a theoretical
concept that attempts to account for real world problems. My own reading of the
term suggests that these problems are threefold, encompassing: the absence of moral
certainty and guides to action, the absence of morale or happiness and a deficiency
in social integration. In sum, it can be thought of as a modem day version of
anomie that hints at problems with morality, (post)modemity, market hegemony and
the everyday. Alterity is studied here as a possible arena in which to subvert and
escape this predicament.
Over a year was spent conducting fieldwork using participant observation
ethnography. Fieldwork was conducted at multiple sites including an intentional
community, a Buddhist retreat centre, a fair trade shop, a real food market that sells
local, organic and fair trade produce, a world music festival and a ‘new age’ dancing
group. These sites were selected in the course of the research because they
constituted themselves as alternatives to the problems of mainstream, modem,
market driven and everyday living. The empirical focus is on the ways in which
alterity can occasion cultural and affectual forms of subversion (rather than political
and ideological ones) because demoralisation - like anomie - is a cultural and
affectual predicament.
In terms of methodological innovation, my PhD represents a contribution to the
development of multi site ethnography (Marcus, 1986). It pioneers the strategy of
‘tracking analytic themes' to do justice to the range of contexts in which alterity
appears and the multiple manifestations it takes. Similarly, it develops ways of
thinking about the relationship between theory and empirical research. As an
ethnography, this thesis makes connections (Strathem, 1991) such that an evocation
(Tyler, 1986) of alterity is offered alongside attempts to engage in myriad
theoretical debates. The empirical research is used to displace and develop existing
social theories without attempting to falsify them or offer new theories in their
place. The theoretical areas of interest are: alterity, marginality, ethos, embodiment,
the nature of modernity and processes of social ordering, the nature of transgression,
the nature of individuality/identity, the nature of community/sociality and the
interface between the market and morality. Additionally, there is a commitment to
social philosophy. Here, concepts such as deconstruction (Derrida, 1967) the fold
(Deleuze, 1993), heterotopia (Hetherington, 1997), motility (Munro, 2001 [1992])
and the relation (Strathem, 1995) are borrowed from continental philosophy and
contemporary social anthropology to make sense of the data and to mount a defence
of the social against postmodern tendencies.
The central conclusion of the PhD concerns the fieldwork sites in relation to
demoralisation. Noting the impossibility of a wholesale escape from
demoralisation, the PhD considers how the fieldwork sites engage with and utilise
the things they seek to subvert in order to fashion ‘pockets of refuge’ and occasion
morality. In this spirit, it is concluded that something is better than nothing. With
this, it is argued that an appreciation of heterogeneity, complexity, movement and
balance can provide forms of subversion and a way forward that does not rely on a
return to outmoded, one dimensional certainty.
Declaration
This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not
concurrently submkta^in candidature for any degree.
Signed:
Date:
Statement 1
This thesis is the result of my own investigations, except where otherwise stated.
Other sources are acknowledged by footnotes giving explicit references. A
bibliography is appended.
Signed:
Statement 2
I hereby give consent for my thesis, if accepted, to be available for photocopying
and for inter-library loan, and for the title and summary to be made available to
outside organisation?.
Acknowledgements
Thanks must first go to my supervisors, Ralph Fevre and Joanna Latimer.
Throughout this project, they have supported and inspired me, on academic and
personal levels, beyond the call of duty whilst still giving me the space to do things
in my own way. From them I have learnt so much and they have my utmost respect
and gratitude. Thanks must also go to the many teachers and academics who have
taken an interest in me or my work. In particular I thank Sara Delamont and William
Housley for reviewing my work at a crucial stage and offering support ever since.
On these grounds I thank Rolland Munro for the time he spent talking with me; his
advice marked a turning point in my analysis and my attitude. Thanks must go to
my colleagues at Surrey University - in particular Tim Jackson - for supporting me,
giving me the time to finish this and convincing me of my worth. I thank Huw
Beynon and Kevin Hetherington for taking the time to read this and for pointing out
the typos.
I cannot begin to thank my family and my friends and I do not know how one is
supposed to acknowledge persons of such importance in a passage like this. To my
family - Mike, Jeannette and Joanne Evans - I love you so much and the extent to
which I have achieved anything here, or anywhere, is very much to do with your
love, support and influence. To my closest friends: Nicholas Wilshin, Gale Ward,
Nicholas Jenkins, Alexander Mylles, Lisa Meredith, Lucy Hiskens, Simon Atkins,
Jason Baston and Alexandra Allan. In particular, Nick Wilshin has been an
incredible friend to me and inadvertently he has been a profound influence on this
thesis [and my life]. Nevertheless, he is still a monkey who has consistently
distracted me with the promise of a Friday night curry! Special thanks must also go
to Alexander Mylles and Nicholas Jenkins whose friendship I treasure so deeply and
whose company is perhaps the only reason I have managed to stay put and finish my
PhD. On related grounds I give thanks to my friends and colleagues in SOCSI,
particularly Kate Moles and Richard Watermeyer. Special thanks must also go to
Lisa and Lucy for letting me sleep on their sofa for the past month whilst I have
been homeless and finishing this thesis! On the topic of absent presences, I thank
Sophie Regazzacci; she knows why.
I thank my new friends in Surrey for helping me through the final stages of this
process. In particular, I thank Wokje Abrahamse, Peter Bradley and Miguel
Brandao.
I give thanks to my students. I cannot overstate how much I have enjoyed teaching
nor can I overstate the benefits of discussing my ideas with intelligent persons who
have not yet made up their minds about everything. Particular thanks go to my third
year students and my second year social theory group. I hope that the clarity that
they seem to credit me with comes through in this writing. Finally, I give thanks to
those who took part in this study and to the ESRC for funding it.
For C, because she has made the past eighteen months the happiest of my life.
Prologue
This thesis is a study of alterity - of Otherness- and as such, takes lifestyles and
practices that might be termed ‘alternative’ as its focus. In considering the nature
of, indeed the very possibility of, alterity; one must consider quite what this
‘Otherness’ is ‘Other’ to. This will be dealt with in due course but for now, the
generic term ‘orthodoxy’ can be used to avoid confusion whilst it is first considered
why alterity is an area of contemporary interest in its own right. Alternative
lifestyles and practices are nothing new; one can look back to myriad historical
examples that do not get exhausted by travelling back to the 1960’s (Romanticism
springs to mind). Nevertheless, there is no doubting the ubiquity of lifestyles and
practices that we think of as somehow ‘alternative’ in contemporary Western
cultures. For example, it is estimated that 1% of people living in Australia and
Europe are living or making plans to reside in an intentional community. Bypassing
the obvious limits of such statistics, this 1% appears small but when one considers
the combined population of Australia and Europe and the fact that moving to an
intentional community potentially marks a radical departure from life, work and
family; this is significant.
Moving away from this somewhat radical manifestation of alterity; it can be noted
that alterity occupies our cultural landscape in less dramatic ways. For example,
there is a large amount of interest in alternative forms of spirituality be it in the form
of ‘Eastern’ religions such as Buddhism or ‘new age’ practices such as yoga and
meditation. One need only look at the invariably large ‘mind body and spirit’
section in the high street bookshops or the Sunday supplements to see the place that
such practices occupy within the popular consciousness. Similarly, one cannot help
but notice - as Hetherington (1998) reminds us - that in any medium sized town in
Britain, one is likely to find ‘ethnic brie a brae’ shops, health food and whole food
shops as well as practitioners of holistic/complementary health and therapy. Then
there are festivals and the myriad other ways in which persons engage in something
a little different (perhaps only for a day or weekend), transcend the everyday and let
go of themselves. Glastonbury is, of course, the most salient example and one need
only consider the excitement when tickets go on sale to see the contemporary
significance of ‘festival’ as a vehicle for transgression and alterity. At the opposite
end of the spectrum, the phenomenon of ‘retreat’ can be considered as a way in
which persons go about doing something different, stepping outside of ordinary life
and getting away from the quotidian. According to the Good Retreat Guide, retreat
can take many forms, most notably ‘mind, body spirit’, ‘meditation’ and ‘yoga’.
Incidentally, the very fact that there is a Good Retreat Guide and that it is a
bestselling book, now in its fifth edition with rave reviews across the board (from
the Guardian to Vogue), indicates both the popularity and significance of retreat as a
vehicle for alterity.
As will be seen in this thesis, food is an integral component in respect of alterity. On
a more general level, one need only look to the contemporary significance of local,
organic, fair trade and vegetarian eating to consider the importance of food in
relation to alterity. This trend is buttressed from all angles, ranging from ecological
pressure groups and the slow food movement to celebrity chefs championing local
and organic produce. The presence of such items on supermarket shelves and the
fact that sales of organic food are rising at a rate of 10% a year are perhaps the
greatest indicators of this trend. This leads to the observation that, quite literally,
alterity is a serious business. Going back to the high street we can see body shop
outlets (selling animal and environmentally friendly produce) in most British towns
and cities except now, after a £652 million bid, it is owned by L’oreal just as the
Pret a Manger cafes (selling organic, fair trade, hand prepared food) that can found
on virtually every street in London are in part (33% to be precise) owned by
McDonalds. Similarly, Green and Blacks organic chocolate is now owned by
Cadbury Schweppes just as Seeds of Change organic food is now owned by a
division of Mars. The obvious temptation, already, is to view alterity as not so
alternative after all. It is not my intention to argue this; I am merely trying to
highlight the contemporary significance of lifestyles and practices that are thought
of as alternative through mapping instances of their ubiquity.
Moving this vista away from a discussion of corporate figures and visions of the
high street; it can also consider those who have done likewise (again, quite literally)
through reference to the trend of ‘downsizing’ or ‘scaling down’. It is not difficult to
consider people who have given up the ‘rat race’ and moved to the countryside,
most likely in Wales, Scotland, East Anglia or South West England, to live a
-v-