On Centrism and Dualism - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

CENTRISM AND DUALISM
feature is the importance of the house as a focus of social organization. Taking a housecentric
perspective might enable the analyst to resolve the ambiguities of kinship systems
found in Indonesia, despite the tremendous variation in the scale and complexity of these
societies (ibid. 47-48).
This wide range of socio-political differences cannot be accommodated by traditional
classificatory conceptions that consider egalitarian, ranked, and hierarchical societies as
noncomparable; yet, in an anti-taxonomic approach they all can be better comprehended by
examining the role of the house as a central fundamental organizing principle (GILLESPIE 2000b:
43).
Part of this ‘heuristic approach’ is the realization that houses are not always best considered as
kinship or descent groups. Different scholars working on Southeast Asian societies noted that
coherent and permanent social entities were better characterized as ritual and/or political units
that may or may not coincide with kin-defined groups (cf. GILLESPIE 2000b: 45).
This conclusion is linked to the main premise of CARSTEN and HUGH-JONES’ ‘heuristic
approach’, according to which houses must be understood in their totality. In this approach,
the house is symbolically linked to the cosmos, society and body, and the “language of the
house” is thought to represent an alternative to the “language of kinship” (CARSTEN/HUGH-
JONES 1995: 19). By the same token, houses must be viewed as living and developing entities
just like the people who inhabit them. Accordingly, this view of the house is firmly grounded
in indigenous conceptions. In much of the world, houses are believed to be endowed with
spirits and souls, and they are conceived as living beings whose different parts often are
labeled by the same terms as those given to human body parts (GILLESPIE 2000b: 47).
II.1.2.3. Gillespie’s Conclusion
After GILLESPIE has shown that the house – understood as a fetishization of conflicting
principles – represents the starting point for most studies dealing with ‘house societies’ in
Southeast Asia, she concludes her review of approaches to LÉVI-STRAUSS’ conception with a
recommendation to safeguard his definition, rather than subsume the house of LÉVI-STRAUSS
within the general rubric of a ‘language of the house’. 78 GILLESPIE states that many scholars
have simply broadened or rejected LÉVI-STRAUSS’ definition, because it did not fit the
particular society under investigation. Therefore, they would have lost the really important
aspects of his conception (GILLESPIE 2000b: 47).
78 Gillespie, solely, calls for the return to Lévi-Strauss’ original definition and not to the attached static notion of
house as a classificatory type (GILLESPIE 2000b: 22).
44