165 culture and identity in anthropology: reflections on 'unity'

International Journal for Dialogical ScienceFall, 2008. Vol. 3, No. 1, <strong>165</strong>-190Copyright 2008 by Toon van MeijlCULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY: REFLECTIONS ON‘UNITY’ AND ‘UNCERTAINTY’ IN THE DIALOGICAL SELFToon van MeijlRadboud University of Nijmegen, The Netherl<strong>and</strong>sABSTRACT. The dialogical self is a very useful concept for the analysis of the multipleidentifications of <strong>in</strong>dividuals <strong>in</strong> multicultural circumstances that are so characteristic of thecontemporary era of globalisation. It complements the dynamic conception of <strong>culture</strong> that hasemerged <strong>in</strong> <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>in</strong> recent decades, while it has a number of advantages over thetraditional concept of <strong>identity</strong>. This article discusses the development of the concept of <strong>culture</strong><strong>in</strong> <strong>anthropology</strong> as well as the parallel debate about the notion of cultural <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong><strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>in</strong> order to demonstrate that the notion of the dialogical self to some extentovercomes the difficulties with the concept of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> the analysis of the dialogical<strong>in</strong>teraction between different conceptions of <strong>culture</strong> with<strong>in</strong> the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals. At the sametime, however, this article aims at show<strong>in</strong>g that the theory of the dialogical self may also benefitfrom anthropological debates about multiple identifications <strong>in</strong> multicultural situations, which<strong>in</strong>dicate that bicultural <strong>in</strong>dividuals are not necessarily hampered by ‘uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty’ whereas thedialogue with<strong>in</strong> their self does not automatically culm<strong>in</strong>ate <strong>in</strong> ‘unity’ either.Keywords: <strong>anthropology</strong>, globalisation, <strong>culture</strong>, <strong>identity</strong>, dialogical self, uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty, unityCulture is hot! Until some 25 years ago <strong>culture</strong> was the trademark of culturalanthropologists, ma<strong>in</strong>ly associated with exotic rituals <strong>in</strong> what they used to call “primitive”societies. S<strong>in</strong>ce the onset of globalisation, however, <strong>culture</strong> has also moved centre stage <strong>in</strong>western discourses. Culture is no longer associated exclusively with pre-modernism, but <strong>in</strong>steadit has become part of popular discourses all over the world, rang<strong>in</strong>g from the representation ofcorporate organisations to the worldview of cultural m<strong>in</strong>orities <strong>in</strong> western nation-states. Assuch, <strong>culture</strong> has acquired a range of different mean<strong>in</strong>gs that require reflection <strong>and</strong> analysis, not<strong>in</strong> the last place because the significance of contemporary <strong>culture</strong>, or rather: <strong>culture</strong>s, hasenormous implications for everyone’s conception of self. The <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g multiplicity of <strong>culture</strong>is reflected <strong>in</strong> the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals <strong>and</strong> for that reason, too, the concept of dialogical selfAUTHOR’S NOTE. Toon van Meijl studied social <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>and</strong> philosophy at the University ofNijmegen <strong>and</strong> the Australian National University <strong>in</strong> Canberra, where he completed his Ph.D. <strong>in</strong> 1991.Currently he is Associate Professor <strong>in</strong> the Department of Anthropology <strong>and</strong> Development Studies at theUniversity of Nijmegen <strong>in</strong> the Netherl<strong>and</strong>s. He is also Academic Secretary of the <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary Centrefor Pacific <strong>and</strong> Asian Studies at Nijmegen. He has conducted fieldwork <strong>in</strong> Maori communities <strong>in</strong> NewZeal<strong>and</strong> s<strong>in</strong>ce 1982 <strong>and</strong> has written extensively on issues of cultural <strong>identity</strong> <strong>and</strong> the self, <strong>and</strong> on sociopoliticalquestions emerg<strong>in</strong>g from the debate about property rights of <strong>in</strong>digenous peoples. Recentpublications are the co-edited volumes Property rights <strong>and</strong> economic development; L<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> naturalresources <strong>in</strong> Southeast Asia <strong>and</strong> Oceania (Kegan Paul International, 1999) <strong>and</strong> Shift<strong>in</strong>g Images of Identity<strong>in</strong> the Pacific (KITLV Press, 2004). Email: T.vanMeijl@ru.nl<strong>165</strong>

VAN MEIJLseems very useful to address the different <strong>and</strong> even oppos<strong>in</strong>g dem<strong>and</strong>s result<strong>in</strong>g fromthe differentiation of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> the context of globalisation <strong>and</strong> its associated processesof migration.Indeed, the prom<strong>in</strong>ence of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> the contemporary era seems itself a culturalphenomenon that cannot be analysed <strong>in</strong> isolation of the unprecendented impact ofglobalisation. When the impact of <strong>in</strong>novations <strong>in</strong> communication technology gatheredsome momentum <strong>and</strong> the rise of neo-liberal ideologies seemed irreversible, theemergence of globalisation became rapidly uncontested <strong>in</strong> the 1980s. Initially, somepessimists still predicted that globalisation would entail an <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g homogenisationof customs <strong>and</strong> <strong>culture</strong>s throughout the world (Ritzer, 1992), but some 15 years later itis no longer disputed that globalisation seems to <strong>in</strong>volve <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g heterogeneity<strong>in</strong>stead (Appadurai, 2001). After all, <strong>in</strong> contrast to earlier expectations globalisation has<strong>in</strong>cited a large-scale revival of cultural traditions at local levels.The so-called paradox of globalisation is particularly evident <strong>in</strong> small-scalesocieties that believe to be <strong>in</strong> danger of los<strong>in</strong>g their cultural uniqueness under the impactof global <strong>in</strong>fluences, as a consequence of which they have become engaged <strong>in</strong> a largescalerevival of cultural traditions (Otto & Pedersen, 2000, 2005). The reconstitution oflocal traditions <strong>and</strong> traditional forms of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> many non-western societies, however,could also be argued as po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to a decl<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g hegemony of western capitalism(Friedman, 2003). This suggestion is further corroborated by a parallel upsurge of aseries of alternative cultural identifications <strong>in</strong> many western societies, such as thosebased on <strong>in</strong>digenousness, regional location <strong>and</strong> immigrant status, which all have anegative <strong>in</strong>fluence on the capacity of nation-states to nationalize.The fragmentation of the nation-state <strong>in</strong> the global era is to a large extent causedby migration. Contemporary movements of labour are fundamentally different fromthose <strong>in</strong> the past, both <strong>in</strong> terms of quantity <strong>and</strong> quality. Some five million people crossnational borders each year, <strong>and</strong> they are on the move not only <strong>in</strong> search of employment,but also for a whole range of other reasons, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g cultural reasons associated withdifferences <strong>in</strong> lifestyle as represented <strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong> dissem<strong>in</strong>ated by multiple global media(“Screens,” 2002). The scale <strong>and</strong> diversity of migrations are therefore not onlyunprecedented, but their consequences are more far-reach<strong>in</strong>g as well. Transnationalmigration is not only complicat<strong>in</strong>g <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> cultural relationships with<strong>in</strong> the nationstate,but the rise of the multicultural society that is associated with it is simultaneouslyhav<strong>in</strong>g fundamental implications for the self of <strong>in</strong>dividual migrants <strong>and</strong> all theirrelations at home <strong>and</strong> abroad. In this context, a dialogical perspective on the self isrequired to take <strong>in</strong>to account the <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g number of voices <strong>and</strong> counter-voices thatare represented <strong>in</strong> the self of multicultural citizens.Not surpris<strong>in</strong>gly, the implications of the processes of globalisation, transnationalmigration <strong>and</strong> the grow<strong>in</strong>g complexity of cultural relationships for the self of166

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY<strong>in</strong>dividuals <strong>in</strong> a variety of different cultural sett<strong>in</strong>gs are featur<strong>in</strong>g high on the researchagenda of social scientists. The concept of self, however, is alien to the toolbox of mostcultural anthropologists. Apart from a small number of cognitive anthropologists,ma<strong>in</strong>ly <strong>in</strong> the United States, most anthropologists <strong>in</strong>terested <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>in</strong>terpretations<strong>and</strong> representations of <strong>culture</strong> tend to use the concept of <strong>identity</strong>, <strong>and</strong>, formerly, thenotion of personality. In this paper, now, I will argue that anthropologists are badly <strong>in</strong>need of a multidimensional concept of self <strong>in</strong> order to tackle the <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly dynamicnature of cultural processes, <strong>and</strong> the manner <strong>in</strong> which they reflect the constitution of<strong>culture</strong> with<strong>in</strong> the self of <strong>in</strong>dividual actors. I will do so partly by reflect<strong>in</strong>g on theoutdated concept of personality, but ma<strong>in</strong>ly by discuss<strong>in</strong>g the drawbacks of the conceptof <strong>identity</strong> for the analysis of complex cultural relationships <strong>and</strong> their consequences forthe self. At the same time, however, I will argue that the psychological theory of thedialogical self may benefit from anthropological analyses of cultural processes, that willnot only raise new questions, but to some extent also provide new answers to oldquestions, e.g. regard<strong>in</strong>g the experience of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty <strong>in</strong> the context of multiplepositions with<strong>in</strong> the self as well as the alleged unity of those positions with<strong>in</strong> the self asa so-called unitas multiplex.‘Culture’ <strong>in</strong> the old daysThe contestation of <strong>culture</strong> is not a unique feature of the exist<strong>in</strong>g Zeitgeist. Bymid-twentieth century two American anthropologists, Kroeber <strong>and</strong> Kluckhohn (1952),found 164 def<strong>in</strong>itions <strong>in</strong> their famous review of what anthropologists meant by <strong>culture</strong>.In the course of the 1960s <strong>and</strong> 1970s, however, <strong>culture</strong> nearly disappeared from view <strong>in</strong>European <strong>anthropology</strong>, although <strong>in</strong> the United States it did reta<strong>in</strong> its value as a crucialconcept (Kuper, 1999). Over the past 15 years or so, partly with the help of culturalstudies, it can be argued that ‘<strong>culture</strong>’ has resumed its key position <strong>in</strong> <strong>anthropology</strong>throughout the world, which is largely due to the central role of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> populardiscourses of multicultural societies. But contemporary conceptions of <strong>culture</strong> areradically different from the mean<strong>in</strong>g <strong>culture</strong> used to have when <strong>anthropology</strong> developedas a discipl<strong>in</strong>e with<strong>in</strong> the academy <strong>in</strong> the n<strong>in</strong>eteenth century. A brief excursion <strong>in</strong>to theshift<strong>in</strong>g mean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>culture</strong> over the years may help to clarify contemporaryconnotations of <strong>culture</strong>.Many anthropological textbooks open with the def<strong>in</strong>ition of <strong>culture</strong> as a wholeway of life of a group or society as it was first formulated by the English evolutionistEdward Tylor:‘Culture’ is that complex whole which <strong>in</strong>cludes knowledge, belief, art, morals,law, custom, <strong>and</strong> any other capabilities <strong>and</strong> habits acquired by man as a memberof society (Tylor, 1871/1924, p. 1)However, if this was a po<strong>in</strong>t of departure for modern <strong>anthropology</strong>, it was not a basis forconsensus <strong>and</strong> anthropologists <strong>in</strong> different national traditions set off along divergent167

VAN MEIJLpaths. The anthropologist Tylor himself attempted to comb<strong>in</strong>e the romantic notion of theGerman philosopher Johann Herder that nations, <strong>and</strong> groups with<strong>in</strong> nations, havedist<strong>in</strong>ctive ‘<strong>culture</strong>s’, with the idea orig<strong>in</strong>at<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the Enlightenment that each of these‘<strong>culture</strong>s’ was positioned at a different evolutionary stage (Wright, 1998). Franz Boas,the found<strong>in</strong>g father of empirical <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>in</strong> the United States, rejected Tylor’ssocial evolutionism by emphasiz<strong>in</strong>g the particularity of each <strong>culture</strong> as a result of thegroup’s responses to different environmental conditions <strong>and</strong> their specific historicaldevelopment. By treat<strong>in</strong>g ‘<strong>culture</strong>’ as the product of historical <strong>and</strong> social forces, ratherthan a biological organism, he criticized the racial determ<strong>in</strong>ism that was underly<strong>in</strong>g theevolutionary perspective of the armchair anthropologists (Stock<strong>in</strong>g, 1974). In Brita<strong>in</strong>,modern <strong>anthropology</strong>’s first professional field worker <strong>and</strong> ethnographer, BronislawMal<strong>in</strong>owski, advanced a different critique of the rationalistic Victorian conception of‘man’ by argu<strong>in</strong>g that far from be<strong>in</strong>g ‘savage’ <strong>and</strong> illogical, each of the ‘peoples’ <strong>in</strong>Africa, South Asia <strong>and</strong> the Pacific had a dist<strong>in</strong>ct, rational <strong>and</strong> legitimate way of lifewhich should be valued (Young, 2004). Thus, anthropologists differed profoundly <strong>in</strong>their theories <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> the aspects of western thought that they questioned, but they sharedan idea of the world as made up of ‘peoples’, each with a coherent way of life, or‘<strong>culture</strong>’ (Wright, 1998).Although <strong>in</strong> the meantime anthropologists have developed new <strong>and</strong> moredynamic ways of th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g about ‘<strong>culture</strong>’, the old, essentialist conception of <strong>culture</strong> haspercolated out from academic discourse <strong>and</strong> is still widespread <strong>in</strong> public parlance. Thema<strong>in</strong> features of this ‘old idea of <strong>culture</strong>’ are that <strong>culture</strong> is basically a bounded, smallscaleentity; with a number of def<strong>in</strong>ed characteristics (follow<strong>in</strong>g a checklist); that isunchang<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>in</strong> balanced equilibrium or self-reproduc<strong>in</strong>g; with an underly<strong>in</strong>g system ofshared mean<strong>in</strong>gs, a so-called ‘authentic <strong>culture</strong>’; <strong>and</strong>, last but not least, with identical,homogenous <strong>in</strong>dividuals (Wright, 1998).In the 1970s the notion of ‘a people’ hav<strong>in</strong>g a ‘<strong>culture</strong>’ came to be considered asa crucial aspect of colonialism. The first critics contended that an essentialist conceptionof <strong>culture</strong> created fixed entities <strong>in</strong> which the West could <strong>in</strong>tervene. By measur<strong>in</strong>g,categoriz<strong>in</strong>g, describ<strong>in</strong>g, represent<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> thereby supposedly ‘know<strong>in</strong>g’ others, theobjects of that knowledge were made the subjects of new forms of power <strong>and</strong> control(Asad, 1973; Said, 1978). Follow<strong>in</strong>g these early critiques of the colonial connotation of‘<strong>culture</strong>’, a spate of further reviews <strong>and</strong> <strong>reflections</strong> followed (see Pels & Salem<strong>in</strong>k,1994). The <strong>in</strong>fluential tradition of British (structural-) functionalism was unpacked ashav<strong>in</strong>g treated ‘<strong>culture</strong>s’ as small-scale, bounded entities organised through economic,social <strong>and</strong> political <strong>in</strong>stitutions which <strong>in</strong>teracted as a self-conta<strong>in</strong>ed ‘whole’ susta<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong>a static equilibrium. Eric Wolf, among many others, argued that this had been a fictionwhen most of the places studied, however remote, were be<strong>in</strong>g visited not just byanthropologists, but also by merchants, missionaries <strong>and</strong> colonial adm<strong>in</strong>istrators.Societies were therefore neither unchang<strong>in</strong>g nor bounded, but part of a world order168

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYdom<strong>in</strong>ated first by colonialism <strong>and</strong> later by nation-states, <strong>in</strong>ternational capitalism <strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>ternational agencies, but these had been left out of a picture of ‘<strong>culture</strong>s’ asahistorical, self-conta<strong>in</strong>ed entities (Wolf 1982).Obviously, Wolf’s critique also had implications for <strong>anthropology</strong>’s quest for theunique ‘authentic <strong>culture</strong>’ of another society <strong>in</strong> the form of an <strong>in</strong>tegrated system ofconsensual ‘essential mean<strong>in</strong>gs’ which self-reproduced regardless of economic <strong>and</strong>political change. If anthropologists constructed the social order out of ‘essentialmean<strong>in</strong>gs’ which did not change <strong>in</strong> new historical or economic conditions, what thenwould generate social <strong>and</strong> cultural transformations (see Kees<strong>in</strong>g 1990)? In addition,anthropologists of varous persuasions have been criticized for treat<strong>in</strong>g ‘<strong>culture</strong>’ as if itwere a set of ideas or mean<strong>in</strong>gs which were shared by a whole populations ofhomogeneous <strong>in</strong>dividuals. Indeed, a long-st<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g assumption of twentieth century<strong>anthropology</strong> was that <strong>in</strong>dividual persons are primarily members of <strong>culture</strong>s, <strong>and</strong> thatthey are therefore regarded as hav<strong>in</strong>g a preexist<strong>in</strong>g <strong>identity</strong> (Strathern 1994) . Thisassumption found expression ma<strong>in</strong>ly <strong>in</strong> the anthropological concepts of personality <strong>and</strong><strong>identity</strong>.IdentityIn the early days <strong>anthropology</strong>’s <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> the person was reflected <strong>in</strong> theconcept of personality. The relationship between <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality was object ofresearch <strong>in</strong> American <strong>anthropology</strong> especially, with a peak of <strong>in</strong>terest between the 1920s<strong>and</strong> the 1950s. The rise of the so-called <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality movement <strong>in</strong> those dayswas brought about by the encounter between <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>and</strong> psychoanalysis,represented ma<strong>in</strong>ly by Freud <strong>and</strong> the American psychiatrist Harry S. Sullivan. Mostparticipants <strong>in</strong> the deliberations aimed at show<strong>in</strong>g that the development of both <strong>culture</strong><strong>and</strong> personality were subject to mutual <strong>in</strong>fluences: personality was considered to beresult<strong>in</strong>g from the <strong>in</strong>ternalization of <strong>culture</strong>, whereas <strong>culture</strong> was regarded as theprojection of personality. A detailed exam<strong>in</strong>ation of this important tradition of research<strong>in</strong> the history of <strong>anthropology</strong> is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is probably notunfair to say that this circular view of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality is <strong>in</strong> a variety of ways tobe found <strong>in</strong> the work of lead<strong>in</strong>g exponents of this movement, among whom AbramKard<strong>in</strong>er, Clyde Kluckhohn, Edward Sapir, Ralph L<strong>in</strong>ton, Cora DuBois, John Whit<strong>in</strong>g,<strong>and</strong> last but not least, Margaret Mead (Harris, 1969).When the <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality movement had reached a theoretical deadlock<strong>in</strong> the 1950s, it was the psychologist Erik Erikson whose work on the so-called ‘ego<strong>identity</strong>’ of children <strong>and</strong> youngsters made eventually that the psychological notion of<strong>identity</strong> replaced the concept of personality <strong>and</strong> entered <strong>anthropology</strong> as a key term.Erikson exam<strong>in</strong>ed the psychological conditions that <strong>in</strong>fluenced the adjustment of the‘personality’ of self to his or her environment. In his view <strong>identity</strong> referred primarily toa coherent sense of self or the feel<strong>in</strong>g on the part of the <strong>in</strong>dividual of be<strong>in</strong>g the same as169

VAN MEIJLhow he or she is viewed <strong>and</strong> identified by other(s). Thus, <strong>identity</strong> referred to a welladjustedpersonality that emerges from the same, or: identical, identification of self byself <strong>and</strong> other (Erikson, 1950). This mean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>identity</strong> proceeds directly from theetymology of the concept, which is derived from the Lat<strong>in</strong> identitat <strong>and</strong>/or identitas,which, <strong>in</strong> turn, was derived from identidem, a contraction of idem et idem, mean<strong>in</strong>g‘repeatedly’ (literally ‘same <strong>and</strong> same’; cf. Sökefeld, 1999). It goes without say<strong>in</strong>g,however, that ‘sameness’ <strong>in</strong> this context must be understood <strong>in</strong> the sense of ‘similar’rather than as a unify<strong>in</strong>g concept (Sovran, 1992).The connotation of sameness is also apparent <strong>in</strong> the more sociological mean<strong>in</strong>gof <strong>identity</strong> that emerged <strong>in</strong> the structural-functional tradition of <strong>anthropology</strong>. Identitycame to be understood as the historically <strong>and</strong> culturally rooted self-image of a group ofpeople that was predom<strong>in</strong>antly sketched <strong>and</strong> sharpened <strong>in</strong> contact vis-à-vis other groupsof peoples. This mean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>identity</strong> was related to other anthropological concepts, suchas worldview, value, ethos, <strong>and</strong>, last but not least, <strong>culture</strong>, all of which suggested acerta<strong>in</strong> k<strong>in</strong>d of homogeneity among members of a community (Abu-Lughod, 1991).Correspond<strong>in</strong>g with the assumption of homogeneity was the view that the <strong>identity</strong> of<strong>in</strong>dividuals reflected the <strong>identity</strong> of their cultural group. As mentioned above, the<strong>identity</strong> of <strong>in</strong>dividuals was supposed to be identitical to the <strong>identity</strong> of the group towhich they belonged, which was consistent with anthropological theories about therelation between person <strong>and</strong> group or community (La Fonta<strong>in</strong>e, 1985). Anotherimportant aspect of this view of <strong>identity</strong> concerned the presupposition of stability <strong>and</strong>permanence. People were regarded to share the same <strong>identity</strong> because they also sharedthe same history. The community or society to which they belonged was consequentlyconsidered to be solid <strong>and</strong> immutable.The conclusion to be drawn from this brief excursion <strong>in</strong>to anthropological<strong>in</strong>terpretations of the relationship between <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality, or, more recently,between <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong>, is that at both social <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual levels of analysis theseconcepts share the same assumptions of sameness <strong>and</strong> stability. In recent years,however, the anthropological focus on homogeneity <strong>and</strong> permanence has graduallyfallen <strong>in</strong>to disarray. For that reason, too, the concepts of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong> have been<strong>in</strong>tensely debated, as has the relationship between the two (e.g., Friedman, 1994). Thenotion of <strong>identity</strong> has not only been criticized for its lack of explanatory power(Brubaker & Cooper, 2000), but, paradoxically, too, the narratives of <strong>identity</strong> that are socharacteristic of the contemporary era of globalisation cannot be understood asexpressions of social homogeneity or as representations of immutable realities either.Not <strong>in</strong>frequently they highlight the supposedly unique aspects of local identities, which<strong>in</strong>variably are <strong>in</strong>tertw<strong>in</strong>ed with rapid changes <strong>in</strong> the social <strong>and</strong> cultural organisation ofsocieties result<strong>in</strong>g from their <strong>in</strong>ter-l<strong>in</strong>kages with the global community. And thechang<strong>in</strong>g conditions for the expression of local identities are itself entangled with a newmean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>culture</strong>.170

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGY‘Culture’ <strong>in</strong> the Present DayIn view of Eric Wolf’s critique of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> the concept’s position <strong>in</strong> formeranthropological accounts of colonial history, it is useful to situate the emerg<strong>in</strong>g newmean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> a historical perspective aga<strong>in</strong>. The end of colonialism that<strong>in</strong>fluenced the old mean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>culture</strong> was marked by chang<strong>in</strong>g political <strong>and</strong> economicconditions. Most countries <strong>in</strong> the world became <strong>in</strong>dependent dur<strong>in</strong>g the 1970s, but thatdid not stop the cont<strong>in</strong>u<strong>in</strong>g expansion <strong>in</strong>to new areas of relations of production <strong>and</strong>exchange based on capital (Jameson, 1991). Most recently, these new doma<strong>in</strong>s would<strong>in</strong>clude the <strong>in</strong>ternational organisation of production <strong>and</strong> consumption, the <strong>in</strong>ternational<strong>in</strong>tegration of f<strong>in</strong>ancial systems, <strong>and</strong>, last but not least, the rapid spread of globalcommunication <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>formation networks. These changes have, <strong>in</strong> turn, sparked offlarge-scale movements of labour, people <strong>and</strong> cultural mean<strong>in</strong>gs, with due consequencesfor contemporary constitutions of <strong>culture</strong>.Above I already <strong>in</strong>dicated that currently <strong>in</strong>ternational movements of people arequantitatively <strong>and</strong> qualitatively dist<strong>in</strong>ct from those <strong>in</strong> the past. Migration has never beenas pervasive as it is today <strong>and</strong> it is not only significant for economic reasons, but itsconsequences for the transformation <strong>and</strong> differentiation of <strong>culture</strong> are equally important.In this context, it might be useful to briefly consider migration <strong>in</strong> the Asia-Pacificregion, which is one of the most <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g regions s<strong>in</strong>ce it accounts for almost 40 % ofthe millions of people who cross national borders each year (Goss <strong>and</strong> L<strong>in</strong>dquist, 2000).In Asia the most conspicuous case is made up by the Philipp<strong>in</strong>es s<strong>in</strong>ce currently morethan 10% of the Philipp<strong>in</strong>e population is work<strong>in</strong>g overseas <strong>in</strong> 130 different countries. Inthe year 2000 their remittances contributed about 21% of the country’s gross nationalproduct. It is also remarkable that Filip<strong>in</strong>os have not only moved to other Asiancountries, with which they share more cultural similarities than with other countries, butalso to the Pacific. It began as early as 1950, when a military base was established <strong>in</strong>Guam, where they now account for more than 25% of the total population of 145,000.They are also found <strong>in</strong> other areas <strong>in</strong> the Pacific, where also many other Asian migrantsare to be found, <strong>and</strong> then the migration of Pacific people themselves has not even beenmentioned.Theories of <strong>in</strong>ternational migration rarely consider the case of the PacificIsl<strong>and</strong>s, despite persistent <strong>and</strong> extensive circulation <strong>and</strong> small isl<strong>and</strong> depopulation thatcharacterizes the movement of migration <strong>in</strong> the Pacific. In this context, it is relevant todist<strong>in</strong>guish the Pacific <strong>in</strong>to three different cultural areas, <strong>and</strong> to clarify that Polynesia ischaracterized by <strong>in</strong>ternational migration to metropolitan countries of the Pacific or thePacific Rim, notably Australia, New Zeal<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> the USA, that Melanesia ischaracterized by <strong>in</strong>ternal migration, ma<strong>in</strong>ly from rural to urban areas, <strong>and</strong> thatMicronesia is characterized by both patterns. Polynesia is <strong>in</strong> this context the most<strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g. I mentioned Guam already, which is part of Micronesia, but <strong>in</strong> Polynesiaone can also f<strong>in</strong>d American Samoa <strong>and</strong> Hawaii, where the presence of the US171

VAN MEIJLstimulated new streams of migration to the American ma<strong>in</strong>l<strong>and</strong>. Other countries havesubsequently followed. In Niue <strong>and</strong> the Cook Isl<strong>and</strong>s, both of which are freelyassociated with New Zeal<strong>and</strong>, three fourths or more of the total population now resides<strong>in</strong> New Zeal<strong>and</strong> or has moved on to Australia. Altogether, at least half a millionPolynesians are liv<strong>in</strong>g abroad today, which is about 25% of the total population. About250,000 of those are liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> New Zeal<strong>and</strong>, where they make up some 6% of the totalpopulation, <strong>and</strong> for that reason Auckl<strong>and</strong> is often referred to as the Polynesian capital.This massive migration is of course not unique to the Pacific, yet <strong>in</strong> this region theimpact of such transnational movement is magnified <strong>in</strong> small populations (Goss <strong>and</strong>L<strong>in</strong>dquist, 2000).Until recently, migration was primarily <strong>in</strong>terpreted <strong>in</strong> terms of its so-called‘push’ <strong>and</strong> ‘pull factors’, which <strong>in</strong>volved too strong an emphasis on the economicdimension of migration. Currently, however, there seems to be consensus that migrationcan no longer be expla<strong>in</strong>ed with the ancient laws of supply <strong>and</strong> dem<strong>and</strong>, it can no longerbe understood with<strong>in</strong> a framework of costs <strong>and</strong> benefits, <strong>and</strong> it can no longer becontrolled by nation-state governments because of its transnational character (VanMeijl, 2007). It is also essential to take <strong>in</strong>to account that <strong>in</strong>dividual mobility has<strong>in</strong>creased dramatically as a result of technological advances <strong>in</strong> transportation <strong>and</strong>communication. It has simply become easier to move around <strong>and</strong> that causes people tomigrate not only for economic reasons, but also for reasons of <strong>identity</strong>. For <strong>in</strong>stance, anuniversity educated woman from the Philipp<strong>in</strong>es is will<strong>in</strong>g to accept a job as a domesticservant overseas. For her migration <strong>in</strong>volves sacrific<strong>in</strong>g a high social status for a better<strong>in</strong>come that enables her to support her family, which rema<strong>in</strong>s essential for her <strong>identity</strong>.Non-economic factors are <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly significant. Labour is not only a commodity, butit is also important for someone’s cultural status <strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong>.The dynamics of contemporary transnational migration make it thereforenecessary not only to look critically at neoclassical economics, but also at the rigid useof some old concepts with<strong>in</strong> the social sciences, such as <strong>culture</strong>. Fluidity, non-fixity,cont<strong>in</strong>gency, contextuality <strong>and</strong> multiplicity are the order of the day <strong>and</strong> these requireparticularly imag<strong>in</strong>ative sets of epistemologies <strong>and</strong> methodologies if we are adequatelyto underst<strong>and</strong> the underp<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>gs <strong>and</strong> implications of transnational flows of goods,people <strong>and</strong> their cultural baggage. A new paradigm for the study of transnationalmovements should therefore not only confront economism, but also the presuppositionsunderly<strong>in</strong>g the ‘old’ conception of <strong>culture</strong>.While <strong>in</strong> the past <strong>culture</strong> referred pr<strong>in</strong>cipally to the coherence of cultural notionsthat were believed to b<strong>in</strong>d a group of people together, <strong>in</strong> the present the mean<strong>in</strong>g of theconcept of <strong>culture</strong> has shifted to <strong>in</strong>clude the diversity <strong>and</strong> derivations of <strong>in</strong>dividualconstructions, representations <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>terpretations of <strong>culture</strong> follow<strong>in</strong>g the large-scaleprocesses of migration across the globe (Wright, 1998). A ‘<strong>culture</strong>’ is no longerconsidered to speak with one voice, so to speak, but to be multi-vocal <strong>and</strong> polyphonous.172

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYThus, a dist<strong>in</strong>ction must be made between, on the one h<strong>and</strong>, a traditional discourse <strong>in</strong>which <strong>culture</strong> was equated with a – group of – people that can be del<strong>in</strong>eated with aboundary, <strong>and</strong>, on the other h<strong>and</strong>, a new discourse <strong>in</strong> which <strong>culture</strong> is not represented asa reified essence but, <strong>in</strong>stead, as a political process of contestation among <strong>in</strong>dividualmembers or group<strong>in</strong>gs over the power to def<strong>in</strong>e social situations (Wright, 1998). Thedynamic relationship between <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>and</strong> community has <strong>in</strong> other words becomecharacteristic of the anthropological concept of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> recent history.The <strong>in</strong>tr<strong>in</strong>sic fluctuation of <strong>culture</strong> that is currently associated with itsmultivocal contestation implies that <strong>culture</strong> is be<strong>in</strong>g used <strong>in</strong> a variety of differentmean<strong>in</strong>gs that are contextually dependent. Similarly, <strong>culture</strong> is no longer regarded asunchang<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> identical for all <strong>in</strong>dividuals, but as an <strong>in</strong>herently dynamic process ofdom<strong>in</strong>ation <strong>and</strong> marg<strong>in</strong>alization <strong>in</strong> which <strong>in</strong>dividuals are positioned differently. Thus,the association of homogeneity that was so characteristic of the old concepts of <strong>culture</strong><strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong>, has been replaced by a concern for the question how different peopleattempt to use the economic, political, <strong>and</strong> symbolic resources that are available to them<strong>in</strong> order to try <strong>and</strong> impose their <strong>in</strong>terpretation <strong>and</strong> underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g of situations on others,while at the same time attempt<strong>in</strong>g to prevent others from mak<strong>in</strong>g their def<strong>in</strong>ition of thesituation hegemonic. The situations <strong>in</strong> which these contemporary struggles for <strong>culture</strong><strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong> are tak<strong>in</strong>g place are also characterized by unboundedness. Local, national<strong>and</strong> global networks often meet <strong>in</strong> them, <strong>and</strong> for that reason, too, the l<strong>in</strong>ks between thevarious aspects of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong> are always historically specific <strong>and</strong> never form aclosed or coherent whole.Multiple IdentificationsA clarification of the new mean<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>culture</strong> not only sheds light on thecontemporary context <strong>in</strong> which identities are be<strong>in</strong>g reconstituted throughout the world,but it also clarifies the need to situate the analysis of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> different dimensions ofsocial <strong>and</strong> cultural situations. Any contextual analysis of contemporary representationsof <strong>identity</strong> will necessarily have to pay attention to the cultural complexity <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>herentambiguity of <strong>identity</strong> (Hannerz, 1992). In the global era <strong>identity</strong> implies not onlysameness <strong>and</strong> uniqueness, s<strong>in</strong>ce these features cannot be def<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> isolation of other –cultural – identities. In <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly multicultural contexts <strong>identity</strong> obta<strong>in</strong>s its mean<strong>in</strong>gprimarily from the <strong>identity</strong> of the other with whom self is contrasted. Indeed, anyconstruction of <strong>identity</strong> is preceded by a recognition of difference <strong>and</strong> an awareness ofwhat self is not, but this psychological process is particularly prom<strong>in</strong>ent <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>terculturalsituations (e.g., Woodward, 1997). Not until the difference with other <strong>in</strong>dividuals with adifferent cultural background has become apparent will the sameness <strong>and</strong> uniqueness ofthe cultural <strong>identity</strong> of self come to the surface. Thus, the new conception of <strong>identity</strong>refers simultaneously to the difference <strong>and</strong> sameness of self <strong>and</strong> other, both withpsychological <strong>and</strong> sociological connotations.173

VAN MEIJLThe problem with this multidimensional view of <strong>identity</strong>, however, is itselusiveness s<strong>in</strong>ce the precedence of difference over sameness makes it logicallyimpossible to provide a positive perspective on what <strong>identity</strong> actually is. The absence ofa ‘self’-generated foundation of <strong>identity</strong>, however, seems unavoidable <strong>in</strong> the currentcondition of postmodernity that denies the possibility to def<strong>in</strong>e <strong>in</strong> positive terms thecontemporary conditions of knowledge <strong>and</strong> representation, also of the subject of self(Lyotard, 1984). The postmodern rejection of the absolute foundation of knowledge <strong>and</strong>representation by Lyotard is, <strong>in</strong> turn, <strong>in</strong>terwoven with Foucault’s (1966) vigorouscritique of the sovereign subject that was so characteristic of the period of modernity.As the aspect of sameness has been eclipsed by difference, so has the aspect ofuniqueness been substituted by plurality <strong>in</strong> the contemporary perspective on <strong>identity</strong>.Identity is no longer seen as exclusive, as <strong>in</strong>dividual, or rather: <strong>in</strong>divisible, but asmultiply constructed across different, often <strong>in</strong>tersect<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> antagonistic, discourses,practices <strong>and</strong> positions. As a result, the attention has shifted from s<strong>in</strong>gular <strong>identity</strong> tomultiple identities, although this emphasis is literally contradictory to the orig<strong>in</strong>al,etymological mean<strong>in</strong>g of sameness of self (Sökefeld, 1999, 2001). Nevertheless, thefocus is now on fractured identities as well as on their flexibility <strong>and</strong> changeability. Inthis context it is also relevant to refer to Stuart Hall’s (1996) def<strong>in</strong>ition of <strong>identity</strong> as‘the po<strong>in</strong>t of suture between on the one h<strong>and</strong> the discourses <strong>and</strong> practices which attemptto “<strong>in</strong>terpellate”, speak to us or hail us <strong>in</strong>to place as the social subjects of particulardiscourses, <strong>and</strong> on the other h<strong>and</strong>, the processes which produce subjectivities, whichconstruct us as subjects which can be “spoken”’ (pp. 5-6). Identity, <strong>in</strong> other words, is ak<strong>in</strong>d of nexus at which different constructions of self co<strong>in</strong>cide, <strong>and</strong> sometimes alsocollide.The <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g recognition that identities are never s<strong>in</strong>gular, but always multiplyconstructed <strong>in</strong> different contexts, which, <strong>in</strong> turn, is <strong>in</strong>tertw<strong>in</strong>ed with the prevalence ofdifference over sameness <strong>in</strong> their mean<strong>in</strong>g, leaves unresolved the question how we canunderst<strong>and</strong> the value of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>and</strong> how we may expla<strong>in</strong> the emergence of <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong>identities <strong>in</strong> recent history. Hall (1996) acknowledges that read<strong>in</strong>g identities onlyaga<strong>in</strong>st the gra<strong>in</strong> of modern <strong>in</strong>terpretations will not lead to an improved underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g.For that reason, too, he argues that it is important that the subject of <strong>identity</strong> cont<strong>in</strong>uesto be placed on the research agenda of the social sciences. Formulat<strong>in</strong>g the parametersof the context <strong>in</strong> which the contemporary study of identities is to be situated, hecontends, firstly, that it is important to l<strong>in</strong>k the social <strong>and</strong> the psychological. In thiscontext he elaborates his def<strong>in</strong>ition of <strong>identity</strong> as an <strong>in</strong>tersection of temporaryattachments to different subject positions <strong>in</strong> various discourses <strong>and</strong> practices, by argu<strong>in</strong>gthat identities can also be seen as result<strong>in</strong>g from successful articulations of differentdiscourses <strong>in</strong> different dimensions, notably social <strong>and</strong> psychological dimensions ofreality.174

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYS<strong>in</strong>ce <strong>in</strong> this view the construction of <strong>identity</strong>, or rather: identities, is a neverend<strong>in</strong>gprocess, always <strong>in</strong>complete, unf<strong>in</strong>ished <strong>and</strong> open-ended, Hall (1996) alsoproposes the term identification above the essentialist concept of <strong>identity</strong>, which ideahas recently been corroborated by the <strong>in</strong>fluential philosopher Zygmunt Bauman (2001).Rather than be<strong>in</strong>g characterized by a s<strong>in</strong>gular <strong>and</strong> stable <strong>identity</strong>, <strong>in</strong> the contemporaryglobal world the subject is constantly ‘sutur<strong>in</strong>g’ itself to different articulations betweendiscourse <strong>and</strong> practice, which process, <strong>in</strong> turn, leads to multiple identifications (see alsoCohen, 2000).The <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g aspect of these developments is that they have raised newquestions for <strong>anthropology</strong>: to what extent is the differentiation of contemporary <strong>culture</strong>sreflected <strong>in</strong> the construction of identities <strong>and</strong> the emergence of multiple identifications?How do multiple identifications come about <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual lives? And how do multipleidentifications of an <strong>in</strong>dividual relate to the identifications of other people <strong>in</strong> a dynamicsocio-cultural context? In addition to these questions regard<strong>in</strong>g the sociologicalimplications of chang<strong>in</strong>g <strong>culture</strong>s <strong>and</strong> chang<strong>in</strong>g identities, it is important to exam<strong>in</strong>e thepsychological implications of contemporary cultural developments. The ma<strong>in</strong> question<strong>in</strong> this respect concerns the relationship between multiple identifications with<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>dividual constructions of themselves as persons (rather than between or among<strong>in</strong>dividuals). How are multiple identifications mediated with<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividualconsciousness? And how do <strong>in</strong>dividuals relate different representations of theiridentifications with<strong>in</strong> their experiences of themselves?These questions, now, raise, <strong>in</strong> turn, the methodological question whether theconcept of <strong>identity</strong>, or identification, is the best term available to address these researchquestions. Some not only consider the analytical value of the concept of <strong>identity</strong><strong>in</strong>sufficient to address its entanglement with cultural complexity, but the ambiguity of<strong>identity</strong> is also compounded by the reification of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> popular discourses, <strong>in</strong>which frequently the focus is exclusively on aspects of sameness, homogeneity <strong>and</strong>historical cont<strong>in</strong>uity. The confusion about the essentialization of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> populardiscourses versus the ambivalence surround<strong>in</strong>g the concept of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> academicdiscourses has caused some to argue that <strong>identity</strong> has been charged with so manymean<strong>in</strong>gs that it has ceased to be a mean<strong>in</strong>gful concept (Brubaker & Cooper, 2000).In contrast, the German anthropologists Mart<strong>in</strong> Sökefeld (2001) has argued thatthe ambivalence caused by the co-existence of constructivist conceptions of <strong>identity</strong>with<strong>in</strong> academia <strong>and</strong> the reification of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> popular discourse is an essentialaspect <strong>in</strong> the usefulness of <strong>identity</strong> as an analytical category. After all, the dualhermeneutics of <strong>identity</strong> enables social scientists to po<strong>in</strong>t simultaneously to theessentialist implications of <strong>identity</strong> <strong>in</strong> social reality <strong>and</strong> to the de-constructivist stance ofsocial scientists. The Janus-faced semantic structure of <strong>identity</strong> would then, if fullyrealised, offer an <strong>in</strong>surance aga<strong>in</strong>st the conflation of categories of practice <strong>and</strong> analysis.It would rem<strong>in</strong>d the academy that identities, although posed by actors as s<strong>in</strong>gular,175

VAN MEIJLcont<strong>in</strong>uous, bounded <strong>and</strong> more or less <strong>in</strong>tegrated, can at the same time be considered assubject to the postmodern conditions of plurality, <strong>in</strong>tersectionality <strong>and</strong> difference.Although it is important to make the dist<strong>in</strong>ction between discourse <strong>and</strong> practice,the analytical value of the concept of <strong>identity</strong> might still be rather limited to addressmultiple identifications with<strong>in</strong> multicultural sett<strong>in</strong>gs. For that reason, too, I would arguethat an exam<strong>in</strong>ation of the questions raised above regard<strong>in</strong>g the relationship amongmultiple identifications with<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual consciousness <strong>and</strong> experience might benefitfrom the analytical value of a multidimensional concept of self, such as the dialogicalself, which does not suffer from the same drawbacks as the concept of <strong>identity</strong>.SelfIn his <strong>in</strong>troductory book Anthropology of the Self (1994), Brian Morris arguesthat <strong>in</strong> the history of <strong>anthropology</strong> the self as primarily a psychological concept hasbeen largely absent, although a large number of anthropologists have been concernedwith cultural conceptions of the person. One of the most <strong>in</strong>fluential anthropologists whogenerated an <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong> cross-cultural underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>gs of the person was probablyMarcel Mauss (1938). Mauss did use the concept of self (moi), but <strong>in</strong> the Frenchtradition of ethnologie he was <strong>in</strong>cl<strong>in</strong>ed to prefer the concept of person (personne).Implicitly he focussed on the notion of person as a cultural category while he seemed toreserve the conception of self for the psychological dimension of personhood.Mauss’ <strong>reflections</strong> on the relationship between sociology <strong>and</strong> psychology wereparalleled by the emergence of the <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong> personality school <strong>in</strong> American<strong>anthropology</strong> (see above). Although the mutual <strong>in</strong>fluences of French <strong>and</strong> American<strong>anthropology</strong> of the person or personality were negligible, there were some remarkablesimilarities. In both traditions of thought an implicit dist<strong>in</strong>ction was made betweencultural representations <strong>and</strong> social practices. Accord<strong>in</strong>gly, the person or personality wasconsidered primarily a cultural conception, or a ‘category’ of a particular community, asMauss phrased it. As such, the person was to be dist<strong>in</strong>guished from the self, which wasunderstood as a self-conscious agent that was constituted socially as well aspsychologically (Morris 1994). A notion of the human person as an <strong>in</strong>dividual self is,<strong>in</strong>deed, lack<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>in</strong> which discipl<strong>in</strong>e the concept of <strong>identity</strong> became ofprime importance <strong>in</strong>stead. The marg<strong>in</strong>al position of the concept of self <strong>in</strong> theanthropological tradition makes it necessary to elaborate <strong>in</strong> some detail on thedifferences <strong>and</strong> similarities between self <strong>and</strong> <strong>identity</strong>.Morris (1994) has emphasized that the self is not an entity but a process thatorchestrates an <strong>in</strong>dividual’s personal experience as a result of which he or she becomesself-aware <strong>and</strong> self-reflective about her or his place <strong>in</strong> the surround<strong>in</strong>g world. Theconcept of self may accord<strong>in</strong>gly be def<strong>in</strong>ed as an <strong>in</strong>dividual’s mental representation ofher or his own person, as a self-representation, while the concept of other refers to themental representation of other persons (see also Spiro, 1993). A clear separation176

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYbetween self <strong>and</strong> other seems to be universal (Spiro, 1993), but the mean<strong>in</strong>g of thisdist<strong>in</strong>ction varies from person to person. At the same time, it seems obvious that therelationship between self <strong>and</strong> other is also a function of <strong>culture</strong> (Shweder & Bourne,1984). Indeed, the most crucial form of <strong>in</strong>teraction <strong>and</strong> exchange takes place, neitherbetween the <strong>in</strong>dividual <strong>and</strong> society, as suggested by Durkheim <strong>and</strong> Mauss <strong>in</strong> Frenchsociology, nor between the psyche <strong>and</strong> <strong>culture</strong>, as implied <strong>in</strong> the American <strong>culture</strong> <strong>and</strong>personality movement, but <strong>in</strong>stead between the self <strong>and</strong> her or his cultural environmentas mediated <strong>in</strong> social practices (Morris, 1994).In view of the dialectics between the self <strong>and</strong> the cultural milieu, which isassumed to be different <strong>in</strong> different types of society, a dichotomy between Western <strong>and</strong>non-Western notions of self has long been embedded <strong>in</strong> Western philosophical <strong>and</strong>psychological traditions of th<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g. Geertz (1983) provided an exemplary def<strong>in</strong>ition ofthe Western conception of self asa bounded, unique, more or less <strong>in</strong>tegrated motivational <strong>and</strong> cognitive universe,a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, <strong>and</strong> action organized <strong>in</strong>to adist<strong>in</strong>ctive whole <strong>and</strong> set contrastively both aga<strong>in</strong>st other such wholes <strong>and</strong>aga<strong>in</strong>st its social <strong>and</strong> natural background...(p. 59)This essentialist construction of an autonomous, unitary <strong>and</strong> stable self <strong>in</strong> the West isgrounded <strong>in</strong> a contrast<strong>in</strong>g assumption that non-western people do not possess an<strong>in</strong>dividuated self that is differentiated from other. As a corollary, a socio-centric modelhas long dom<strong>in</strong>ated western perceptions of the non-western self, presupposs<strong>in</strong>g that <strong>in</strong>non-western societies a self is <strong>in</strong>separable from the surround<strong>in</strong>g community. Over thepast decade, however, it has become <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly apparent that this dichotomy isproblematic for two reasons. First, the <strong>in</strong>dividualist notion of the western self must berevised s<strong>in</strong>ce it is unquestionably more heterogeneous, contested <strong>and</strong> dialectical than isusually assumed (Murray, 1993). Second, it is currently widely accepted that a sociocentricworldview <strong>in</strong> non-western societies does not necessarily preclude thedevelopment of an <strong>in</strong>dividual self (Kusserow, 1999).The relatively recent deconstruction of the antithetical <strong>in</strong>terpretation of awestern versus a non-western self follows partly the rise of postmodernism. This newdiscourse of knowledge contributed to the dismantlement of the conception of reason<strong>and</strong> truth that characterized western philosophy s<strong>in</strong>ce the Enlightenment (Lyon, 1994).In addition, it rejected the foundation of knowledge <strong>in</strong> an autonomous self or, asFoucault (1966) phrased it, a sovereign subject. In a postmodern perspective, then, theself is no longer considered as the source of all reflection, but it is decentred to a merefunction of social practice. The self does not constitute the world, but is itselfconstituted by the world. For that reason, too, <strong>in</strong> postmodern thought the self is neverunified, but <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly disunited, while it is never s<strong>in</strong>gular but always constituted <strong>in</strong>manifold manners <strong>in</strong> different doma<strong>in</strong>s of society (Hall, 1996). Hence, the self is177

VAN MEIJLcurrently understood as pluralist, fragmented, emergent, dialogical, relational,<strong>in</strong>consistent <strong>and</strong> culturally determ<strong>in</strong>ed, both <strong>in</strong> western <strong>and</strong> non-western societies(Murray, 1993).The Dialogical SelfA multidimensional conception of the self may be more suitable to address theself <strong>in</strong> postmodern circumstances, but it does not automatically provide the answers tothe critical questions mentioned above: how are <strong>in</strong>dividuals constituted <strong>in</strong> <strong>and</strong> throughmultiple different identities, or rather identifications. More specifically, how do multipleforms of difference, such as <strong>culture</strong>, space, ethnicity, class <strong>and</strong> gender <strong>in</strong>tersect with<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>dividual actors? And how can multiple differences with<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>dividual actors beacknowledged without represent<strong>in</strong>g their identifications as negative, damaged or <strong>in</strong>crisis?In this debate two different arguments tend to dom<strong>in</strong>ate. For a long time theprevail<strong>in</strong>g perspective was offered by cognitive dissonance theory as developed byLeon Fest<strong>in</strong>ger (1957). The central hypothesis of this approach is that any personexperiences the existence of dissonance between cognitive elements as uncomfortable<strong>and</strong> therefore everyone will always try to reduce a discrepancy between conflict<strong>in</strong>gcognitions <strong>and</strong> attempt to achieve consonance, consistency <strong>and</strong> coherence. In addition,people are supposed to actively avoid situations <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>formation which might <strong>in</strong>creasecognitive dissonance s<strong>in</strong>ce these entail a form of psychological tension that any<strong>in</strong>dividual wishes to dim<strong>in</strong>ish. The underly<strong>in</strong>g concept of self <strong>in</strong> this theory is thatpeople attempt to preserve a consistent <strong>and</strong> stable sense of self.A comparable notion of self also characterizes the work of some cognitiveanthropologists (Holl<strong>and</strong> & Qu<strong>in</strong>n, 1987; D'Andrade & Strauss, 1992; Shore, 1996).They refer to cognitive schemata <strong>and</strong> cultural models that are shared by members of asociety <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>ternalized <strong>in</strong>to the self. In multicultural or other dynamic situations thisnotion of self implies that people have no choices but to accommodate diverg<strong>in</strong>gcultural identifications with<strong>in</strong> a relatively stable <strong>and</strong> coherent self. In order to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> acohesive whole the self is therefore claimed to reject or suppress identifications thatmay conflict with other types of cognitive <strong>in</strong>formation <strong>and</strong> self-representations.Currently, it is widely accepted that this theoretical approach of the self is<strong>in</strong>adequate to expla<strong>in</strong> the dilemmas faced by multicultural citizens <strong>in</strong> globalisedcircumstances, but the assumption that a sense of consonance or consistency is crucialfor an <strong>in</strong>dividual self rema<strong>in</strong>s deeply embedded even <strong>in</strong> attempts to discard with thenotion of a stable <strong>and</strong> coherent self. Many cont<strong>in</strong>ue to hold that actors generallyexperience their self as a symbolic whole <strong>in</strong> spite of multiple <strong>and</strong> chang<strong>in</strong>grepresentations that often seem mutually <strong>in</strong>consistent. This may best be illustrated withreference to Kather<strong>in</strong>e Ew<strong>in</strong>g’s (1990) frequently cited paper ‘The Illusion ofWholeness’. Ew<strong>in</strong>g tried to show how <strong>in</strong>dividual selves throughout the world178

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYcont<strong>in</strong>uously reconstitute themselves <strong>in</strong>to new selves <strong>in</strong> response to <strong>in</strong>ternal <strong>and</strong>external stimuli. In her view <strong>in</strong>dividuals construct these new selves from an availableset of self-representations, that are highly dependent on context <strong>and</strong> mutually<strong>in</strong>consistent. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to Ew<strong>in</strong>g, the self is generally not aware of these shifts <strong>in</strong> selfrepresentation,which do not therefore thwart <strong>in</strong>dividual experiences of wholeness <strong>and</strong>cont<strong>in</strong>uity. The shift<strong>in</strong>g selves can only be observed by others, who are generally alsounable to identify an overarch<strong>in</strong>g, cohesive self. In Ew<strong>in</strong>g’s perspective this implies thatthe experience of personal cont<strong>in</strong>uity <strong>and</strong> wholeness by self is illusory.Others, ma<strong>in</strong>ly <strong>in</strong> the field of cognitive <strong>anthropology</strong> (e.g., Qu<strong>in</strong>n, 2006) <strong>and</strong>personality psychology (e.g., Hermans <strong>and</strong> Kempen, 1993), have l<strong>in</strong>ked up the idea ofplural, compet<strong>in</strong>g conceptions of the self with the notion of a person as a composite ofmany, often contradictory, self-underst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>gs <strong>and</strong> identities. This str<strong>and</strong> of analysis hasbeen <strong>in</strong>spired ma<strong>in</strong>ly by the Russian literary critic Mikhael Bakht<strong>in</strong>, <strong>and</strong> has resulted <strong>in</strong>a view of the self as a multiplicity of I-positions among which dialogical relationshipsare established, which hardly requires further elaboration for the readership of thisjournal. The most important implication of the dialogical perspective on the self is thatit is not an <strong>in</strong>tra-psychological but a relational phenomenon that transcends theboundaries between <strong>in</strong>side <strong>and</strong> outside, between self <strong>and</strong> other, which view has beenforeshadowed <strong>in</strong> the theory of William James. Although James (1890/1950) might havefocused more on cont<strong>in</strong>uity than on discont<strong>in</strong>uity <strong>in</strong> his <strong>in</strong>terpretation of the self, withhis statement that a person “has as many social selves as there are <strong>in</strong>dividuals whorecognize him…” (p. 294) he laid the foundation for the contemporary view of adialogical relationship between multiple identifications of the self.The Illusion of ‘Unity’?At first sight, a dialogical perspective on the self seems to contradict Ew<strong>in</strong>g’sconception of the ‘illusory whole’, but on second thoughts it can be argued that thetheory of the dialogical self as it has been developed by Hubert J. Hermans has yet thecome to terms with the question whether ‘unity’ is the most appropriate concept todescribe the relationship between dialogical <strong>in</strong>teractions among an extensive repertoireof I-positions. Although the concept of the dialogical self is theoretically equipped todiscard with the notion of unity to represent a steady <strong>and</strong> stable <strong>in</strong>teraction among avariety of <strong>in</strong>ternal <strong>and</strong> external positions, I would argue that the role of the concept ofunity <strong>in</strong> the debate about the dialogical self is at least ambiguous, if not ideologically<strong>in</strong>correct.In his latest book on ‘dialogue <strong>and</strong> misunderst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g’, for the time be<strong>in</strong>g only <strong>in</strong>Dutch, Hermans (2006) borrows the metaphor of unitas multiplex from the Germanpsychologist <strong>and</strong> philosopher William Stern to represent the sense of <strong>in</strong>tegration of thedialogical self that he assumes is necessary <strong>in</strong> order to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> a balanced personalityas dist<strong>in</strong>ct from dissociative <strong>identity</strong> disorders (DIDs). S<strong>in</strong>ce the ma<strong>in</strong> characteristic of179

VAN MEIJLdissociative <strong>identity</strong> disorders is a disturbance of the dialogue among a range of I-positions result<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> an imbalanced selection of <strong>in</strong>ternal <strong>and</strong> external positions, theassumption is that balanced personalities, <strong>in</strong> contrast, have managed to achieve a certa<strong>in</strong>sense of cohesion among their I-positions. The <strong>in</strong>tegration of I-positions is to someextent portrayed as a unity, but at the same time Hermans does seem to acknowledgethat the unity he assumes characterizes the experience of dialogical relationships <strong>in</strong> theself of co-called ‘healthy’ human be<strong>in</strong>gs, is <strong>in</strong>complete.Hermans argues that the ma<strong>in</strong> aim of the dialogical <strong>in</strong>teraction among a largevariety of <strong>in</strong>ternal <strong>and</strong> external I-positions is to establish ‘unity’ <strong>in</strong> the self, but at thesame time he po<strong>in</strong>ts out that this process is never-end<strong>in</strong>g. Unity seems to be achievedonly <strong>in</strong> a meta-position, when <strong>in</strong>dividuals reflect on their <strong>in</strong>teractions <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>variablyhighlight the consistency among their different positions. Hermans also adds that theunity which is claimed at a reflexive moment of the meta-position is an ‘illusion’, whichparadoxically is the same term as used by Ew<strong>in</strong>g who takes a rather different stance <strong>in</strong>theory. I would argue, however, that the unity of the self <strong>in</strong> both theories is essentially<strong>in</strong>compatible with the multiplicity of positions <strong>and</strong> their shift<strong>in</strong>g importance depend<strong>in</strong>gon context. By the same token, many people tend to represent their self as cont<strong>in</strong>uous,but that is usually not consistent with the ongo<strong>in</strong>g alterations among positions that po<strong>in</strong>tto a structural discont<strong>in</strong>uity of the self.The notion of unity <strong>in</strong> the theory of the dialogical self may therefore bedisputed, both on theoretical grounds as well as on the basis of recent empiricalresearch. Theoretically, it could be argued that <strong>in</strong> view of a long-term perspective on thedevelopment of the self, from pre-modernity to modernity, <strong>and</strong> subsequently to postmodernity,the concept of unity is an ideological device derived from the period ofmodernity dur<strong>in</strong>g which <strong>in</strong>divisible <strong>in</strong>dividuals constituted the core of society. Over thepast few decades, however, globalisation has transformed the core of modern society<strong>in</strong>to a contact zone (Appadurai, 1991) or rather a network society (Castells, 1996),which implies that many people are deal<strong>in</strong>g not only with the dem<strong>and</strong>s of their own<strong>culture</strong>, but also with the challenges of global society. As a corollary, many people,adolescents <strong>in</strong> particular, now develop multicultural identities. Part of their <strong>identity</strong> isrooted <strong>in</strong> the <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> which they were born <strong>and</strong> raised, but another part is <strong>in</strong>fluencedby <strong>and</strong> oriented towards the more global situation. Some may manage to develop ahybrid <strong>identity</strong>, relatively successfully comb<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g aspects of both local <strong>and</strong> globalcircumstances, but <strong>in</strong>variably characterized by components of a different orig<strong>in</strong> thatrequire to be recomb<strong>in</strong>ed cont<strong>in</strong>uously. Others will be <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> a never-end<strong>in</strong>gstruggle to work out <strong>in</strong> which situation they ideally belong. In any case, the culturalidentities of most will no longer be obvious <strong>and</strong> a great deal of confusion has emergedamong young people grow<strong>in</strong>g up <strong>in</strong> multicultural situations. Local <strong>culture</strong>s are chang<strong>in</strong>gunder the impact of globalisation, while globalised circumstances are often radicallydifferent for new migrants, which often causes young people to feel alienated both from180

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYtheir old home <strong>and</strong> their new home. Indeed, home seems to have been lost for many,which raises the question how young people cope with the dynamics of thecontemporary era, characterized by multiculturalism. Hence, too, it is <strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong>also essential to <strong>in</strong>vestigate whether <strong>in</strong> the postmodern era the core of the modern selfhas been substituted by a dialogue among a variety of different I-positions that still tryto achieve unity but <strong>in</strong> practice never will.The hypothesis underly<strong>in</strong>g this question is argued not only on theoreticalgrounds, but also on the basis of empirical studies of the relationship between differentcultural positions of the self <strong>in</strong> multicultural circumstances. In a recent paper NaomiQu<strong>in</strong>n (2006), a well-known cognitive anthropologist, revisits the ethnographic casepresented by Kather<strong>in</strong>e Ew<strong>in</strong>g (see above), who exam<strong>in</strong>ed the cultural dilemmas facedby a Pakistani woman who has moved away from her traditional place of residence. Asa consequence, she was undergo<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>ner turmoil over the impend<strong>in</strong>g choice of ahusb<strong>and</strong> she herself does not favor. On the one h<strong>and</strong>, she is an obedient daughter, who“hoped that I would be able to sacrifice my feel<strong>in</strong>gs so that my parents can be happy.”Yet, <strong>in</strong> her very next utterance, she is a clever politician who will do what she can to gether way: “I will try to conv<strong>in</strong>ce them but will try not to pressure them.” Subsequently,the Pakistani woman veers back to a representation of herself as an obedient child:“those who disobey their parents are not successful <strong>in</strong> life” (Ew<strong>in</strong>g, 1990, p. 253).Ew<strong>in</strong>g argued that this Pakistani woman herself did not realise that her conceptof herself is shift<strong>in</strong>g <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>consistent, but <strong>in</strong>stead that she experiences each selfrepresentationas coherent <strong>in</strong> the context with<strong>in</strong> which she <strong>in</strong>vokes it. Accord<strong>in</strong>g toEw<strong>in</strong>g, the Pakistani woman was able to keep potentially conflict<strong>in</strong>g representations ofherself as a good daughter <strong>and</strong> a schem<strong>in</strong>g politician apart <strong>in</strong> her m<strong>in</strong>d. This argument issubstantiated with reference to a cognitive device labelled ‘conta<strong>in</strong>ment’, on the basis ofwhich she would be able to keep potentially conflict<strong>in</strong>g representations of herself as agood daughter <strong>and</strong> a schem<strong>in</strong>g politician separated. Qu<strong>in</strong>n, on the other h<strong>and</strong>, arguesthat Ew<strong>in</strong>g’s analysis is not just <strong>in</strong>complete but also mislead<strong>in</strong>g, leav<strong>in</strong>g a falseimpression that all is shift <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>consistency, context <strong>and</strong> illusion. Instead, she proposesto analyse the cultural attitude of this Pakistani woman as “a cultural solution to theotherwise unbearable dem<strong>and</strong>s of formal deference <strong>in</strong> a severely hierarchical system offamily relations” (Qu<strong>in</strong>n, 2006, p. 373). Qu<strong>in</strong>n supports this conclusion of the case withreference to Joseph LeDoux’s neuroscientific theory of the so-called ‘synaptic self’, <strong>in</strong>which the self is viewed as ‘a unit’, but not as ‘unitary’. From this perspective, the senseof be<strong>in</strong>g a whole arises as a consequence of neural systems act<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> concert to achieve<strong>in</strong>tegration, but the <strong>in</strong>tegration is never perfect. Indeed, the unit of the neurobiologicalwhole contributes to the <strong>in</strong>tegration of the self, but unity <strong>in</strong> the strict sense of the term isnever achieved.The neurobiological theory of the self as a non-unitary unit is particularly usefulfor the analysis of the self who f<strong>in</strong>ds her/himself <strong>in</strong> cross-cultural situations that are so181

VAN MEIJLcharacteristic of the contemporary global era. For that reason, too, it can best be verifiedwith ethnographic examples of <strong>in</strong>ter-cultural dilemmas. Thus, the same po<strong>in</strong>t could bemade on the basis of my own ethnographic studies of the problems faced by youngMaori people, who are alienated from the traditional <strong>culture</strong> that is currently be<strong>in</strong>grevived <strong>in</strong> contemporary New Zeal<strong>and</strong>, but who at the same time feel obliged to makean effort to familiarize themselves with the Maori language <strong>in</strong> order to becomeconversant with ceremonial protocol (Van Meijl, 2005, 2006). On the one h<strong>and</strong>, Maoriyoungsters are <strong>in</strong>cl<strong>in</strong>ed to acknowledge the need to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> Maori ceremonies <strong>in</strong> orderto cont<strong>in</strong>ue Maori cultural traditions which they consider an essential part of Maorisociety <strong>and</strong> Maori <strong>identity</strong>. On the other h<strong>and</strong>, however, they are reticent <strong>in</strong> mak<strong>in</strong>g aneffort to learn the Maori language <strong>and</strong> the pr<strong>in</strong>ciples of traditional protocol necessaryfor Maori ceremonial life because they also th<strong>in</strong>k it is archaic <strong>and</strong> thereforeunnecessary. Yet it would be unfair to criticize these youngsters for be<strong>in</strong>g contradictoryor <strong>in</strong>consistent. In my view, they are fac<strong>in</strong>g an irresolvable dilemma that is <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>glycommon <strong>in</strong> the present day, when people are cont<strong>in</strong>uously mov<strong>in</strong>g across culturall<strong>and</strong>scapes. People liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> cross-cultural circumstances are mediat<strong>in</strong>g the differencesbetween <strong>culture</strong>s, also with<strong>in</strong> their – dialogical – selves, but they realise more <strong>and</strong> morethat some differences cannot be <strong>in</strong>tegrated <strong>in</strong>to a whole. As a corollary, they attempt tocome to terms with their multiple identifications, but they are <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly aware thatthe pursuit of unity <strong>in</strong> the self is an illusion, ma<strong>in</strong>ly because the different culturaldimensions of their life are irreconcilable.The implications of these ethnographic examples for the theory of the dialogicalself are not negligible. Instead of liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> one particular society that may becharacterized by a rather homogeneous k<strong>in</strong>d of <strong>culture</strong>, more <strong>and</strong> more people are liv<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong> the contact zones of different <strong>culture</strong>s <strong>and</strong> societies. The <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>terdependencyof societies around the world <strong>and</strong> the cultural networks transvers<strong>in</strong>g them not only<strong>in</strong>volve an <strong>in</strong>tensification of contact between different cultural group<strong>in</strong>gs, but also astrengthen<strong>in</strong>g of cultural contact with<strong>in</strong> the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals. Increas<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>terculturality, so to speak, is reflected <strong>in</strong> the rise of different cultural positions with<strong>in</strong>the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals, which <strong>in</strong> turn deepens the dialogue between these positions thatall have a voice with<strong>in</strong> the self. And these voices are <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> complicatedconversations that reflect the differentiation of <strong>culture</strong> <strong>in</strong> the global world. Negotiations,tensions, conflicts, agreements <strong>and</strong> disagreements not only take place between differentcultural group<strong>in</strong>gs at the social level, but also with<strong>in</strong> the dialogical self of multicultural<strong>in</strong>dividuals. And s<strong>in</strong>ce the world is becom<strong>in</strong>g more heterogeneous <strong>and</strong> multiple, the selfalso becomes more heterogeneous <strong>and</strong> multiple with due consequences for the <strong>in</strong>ternalorganisation of the self. Cultural differentiation <strong>and</strong> multiplication requires more thanever before a well-developed dialogue, but the chances that this will lead to a coherentunity of the self have not <strong>in</strong>creased over the years. Indeed, strong cultural differences,contrasts <strong>and</strong> oppositions <strong>in</strong>dicate more than ever before that unity is no longer the182

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYappropriate term to characterize the self of multicultural <strong>in</strong>dividuals who are engaged <strong>in</strong>a dialogue between different cultural positions. Although it is highly questionable that<strong>in</strong>dividuals <strong>in</strong> the past were not aware of <strong>in</strong>consistencies <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>coherencies among theirdifferent I-positions, I would suggest that especially <strong>in</strong> the contemporary, multiculturalcontact zones it can no longer be ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed that the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> bothlocal <strong>and</strong> global networks is attempt<strong>in</strong>g to achieve unity. Dialogue <strong>and</strong> unity no longerseem to mix, if they ever did.Dialogue <strong>and</strong> Uncerta<strong>in</strong>tyThe argument that ‘unity’ may no longer be an appropriate concept to describethe balance of the dialogue <strong>in</strong> which <strong>in</strong>dividuals are <strong>in</strong>volved <strong>in</strong> multiculturalcircumstances also reflects on a related assumption <strong>in</strong> the theory of the dialogical self,namely that the process of globalisation arouses a great deal of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty. In his latestbook Hermans elaborates his theory of the dialogical self <strong>in</strong> l<strong>in</strong>e with an earlierpublication on the implications of the emergence of cultural connections <strong>and</strong> culturalmixtures for the self (Hermans & Kempen 1998). Uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty, they argue, is a sign ofthe present s<strong>in</strong>ce more <strong>and</strong> more people participate simultaneously <strong>in</strong> different culturalnetworks which are largely disjunctive. The contradictions, ambiguities <strong>and</strong> contrast<strong>in</strong>g<strong>in</strong>terests that accompany the rise of the multicultural network society are assumed notjust to complicate the self’s attempt to atta<strong>in</strong> unity among its range of I-positions, butalso to confront the self with uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty.In a more recent paper, Hermans elaborates the concept of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty <strong>in</strong>cooperation with the Italian psychiatrist Giancarlo Dimaggio (Hermans & Dimaggio,2007). Uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty, they argue, is a direct consequence of the condition of globalisation,which has not only compressed time <strong>and</strong> space, but which has also led to the worldwiderise of a neo-liberal ideology that has removed the certa<strong>in</strong>ty of jobs <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>come <strong>in</strong> thepast. In develop<strong>in</strong>g countries it has <strong>in</strong>troduced a range of extra conditions for thedonation of development funds. Hermans <strong>and</strong> Dimaggio (2007) even l<strong>in</strong>k these latesteconomic currents with a new source of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty: terrorism. S<strong>in</strong>ce the attack on theTw<strong>in</strong> Towers on 9/11 al-Qaeda has had a far-reach<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>fluence on world politics, whichaccord<strong>in</strong>g to the authors is reflected <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty of the <strong>in</strong>dividual self. Inmy op<strong>in</strong>ion, it is here that Hermans <strong>and</strong> Dimaggio make a logical mistake by jump<strong>in</strong>gimmediately from the global picture of the world to the self without question<strong>in</strong>g thedirect relationship between the <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g dynamics of <strong>in</strong>ternational politics <strong>and</strong> thealleged experience of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty by <strong>in</strong>dividuals.Hermans <strong>and</strong> Dimaggio (2007) specify their view of the ‘experience ofuncerta<strong>in</strong>ty’ as made up of four aspects: cultural complexity, ambiguity follow<strong>in</strong>g the<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g dynamics of contemporary politics, deficit knowledge referr<strong>in</strong>g to the demiseof the gr<strong>and</strong> récits of modernity, <strong>and</strong>, f<strong>in</strong>ally, unpredictability, imply<strong>in</strong>g that the futureis generally no longer obvious. Their vision is that multivoiceness <strong>in</strong> the global world183

VAN MEIJLmakes a fixation of mean<strong>in</strong>g no longer possible, as a result of which a universal voicefor resolv<strong>in</strong>g contradictions <strong>and</strong> conflict<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>formation has been silenced, which makesthe future unpredictable <strong>and</strong> therefore also uncerta<strong>in</strong>. The question is, however, what theimplications of these global observations are for the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals. In this respect,Hermans <strong>and</strong> Dimaggio (2007) themselves are ambigious too, s<strong>in</strong>ce they add to theirobservations that the experience of uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty is ‘not necessarily a negativeexperience’ s<strong>in</strong>ce it ‘may open <strong>and</strong> broaden the space for possible actions, adventures,<strong>and</strong> explorations of the unknown (e.g. travel<strong>in</strong>g, <strong>in</strong>ternational contacts, forms of<strong>in</strong>ternational <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>tercultural cooperation)’. In addition, ‘uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty can be seen as adef<strong>in</strong>itive farewell to the dogmas <strong>and</strong> ideologies of <strong>in</strong>stitutions that restricted <strong>and</strong>conf<strong>in</strong>ed the self <strong>in</strong> earlier times’. But if uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty is not necessarily negative <strong>and</strong>even has positive connotations, is uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty then the most appropriate concept todescribe the contemporary condition huma<strong>in</strong>e?Let there be no misunderst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>g that I am not question<strong>in</strong>g that the ris<strong>in</strong>g mix of<strong>culture</strong>s raises a range of new questions regard<strong>in</strong>g the nature of the conversationbetween the different cultural voices <strong>in</strong> the self: “How do they f<strong>in</strong>d their way when theymove across such contact zones without any overall <strong>in</strong>tegrative knowledge system thatmight be helpful <strong>in</strong> organiz<strong>in</strong>g their lives <strong>in</strong>telligibly. How do they respond? Do theyconstruct an <strong>in</strong>dividualized comb<strong>in</strong>ation of some of the l<strong>and</strong>scapes, do theysuperspecialize <strong>in</strong> one of them, or do they recomb<strong>in</strong>e elements to form differentl<strong>and</strong>scapes <strong>in</strong>to new mixtures?” (Hermans & Kempen, 1998). However, contrary to theassumption of Hermans, Kempen, <strong>and</strong> Dimaggio that uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty characterizes the selfwhen mov<strong>in</strong>g across cultural contact zones, I would like to launch the hypothesis thatthe <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>terculturality of the world does not necessarily make the self<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly uncerta<strong>in</strong> at the same time. Of course, globalisation challenges people toextend their selves <strong>and</strong> identities beyond the bounded doma<strong>in</strong> of traditional sett<strong>in</strong>gs,which automatically leads to a multiplication of <strong>in</strong>ternal positions <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong>tensifies themulti-voicedness of the self, but whether it also leads to permanent uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty of theself is not self-evident. The dialogical self <strong>in</strong> multicultural situations is, <strong>in</strong> my view, wellaware that it will never achieve the unity that was still the ideal of the modern self, s<strong>in</strong>cea differentiation <strong>in</strong> cultural dimensions is becom<strong>in</strong>g a natural part of people’s livesnowadays. A disjunction between different cultural perspectives is becom<strong>in</strong>g an <strong>in</strong>herentaspect of the lives of an <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g number of cosmopolitican citizens. Rather thanmak<strong>in</strong>g them uncerta<strong>in</strong> they take it for granted that their self is disunited <strong>and</strong> thatdialogue is essential to ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong> a balance between the different cultural l<strong>and</strong>scapes <strong>in</strong>their lives <strong>and</strong> m<strong>in</strong>ds.Conclud<strong>in</strong>g RemarksOver the past few decades the world has probably changed more swiftly thanbefore. Follow<strong>in</strong>g the <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g exchange of capital <strong>and</strong> communication across the184

CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN ANTHROPOLOGYglobe, people are more on the move than <strong>in</strong> the past. As a corollary, <strong>culture</strong>s have mixed<strong>and</strong> changed <strong>in</strong> unprecedented manners, which has tremendous implications for the<strong>identity</strong> <strong>and</strong> self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals who are mov<strong>in</strong>g across a variety of different culturall<strong>and</strong>scapes. The globalized world is characterized more by cultural misunderst<strong>and</strong><strong>in</strong>gs,disagreements, prejudices <strong>and</strong> tensions, which altogether poses a number of challengesfor a large number of people who for the first time <strong>in</strong> history are liv<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> differentcultural zones than <strong>in</strong> which they have grown up. Never before have so many peoplebeen <strong>in</strong>terconnected, with all due consequences for the lives of <strong>in</strong>dividuals. For the<strong>in</strong>terpretation <strong>and</strong> analysis of the impact of globalization on the <strong>in</strong>dividual level newtheoretical approaches <strong>and</strong> new concepts are required.In this article, it has been argued that <strong>anthropology</strong> <strong>and</strong> psychology offercomplementary <strong>in</strong>sights that are very useful for the analysis of the cultural exchangestak<strong>in</strong>g place not only at social levels of societies, but also <strong>in</strong> the m<strong>in</strong>d of <strong>in</strong>dividualselves. Anthropology has recently developed a more dynamic concept of <strong>culture</strong> thanthe old, essentialized <strong>and</strong> bounded notion of <strong>culture</strong> that emerged <strong>in</strong> the n<strong>in</strong>eteenthcentury. Currently, <strong>culture</strong> is characterized by change <strong>and</strong> contestation with<strong>in</strong> groups aswell as with<strong>in</strong> the self of <strong>in</strong>dividuals who are torn between a localized situation <strong>in</strong>which they grew up <strong>and</strong> a globalized location to which they have moved <strong>in</strong> search ofwork, money <strong>and</strong> pleasure. The reflection of this concept of <strong>culture</strong> at the <strong>in</strong>dividuallevel creates the dem<strong>and</strong> for a new conception of <strong>in</strong>dividual persons. In <strong>anthropology</strong>the notion of <strong>identity</strong> is still dom<strong>in</strong>ant, but many have commented on the drawbacks ofthe term for the analysis of the highly dynamic <strong>and</strong> contested circumstances <strong>in</strong> which<strong>in</strong>dividuals currently f<strong>in</strong>d themselves. Identities have multiplied <strong>and</strong> therefore tend toshift <strong>in</strong> mean<strong>in</strong>g accord<strong>in</strong>g to context, as a result of which some have suggested that theconcept of <strong>identity</strong> should be replaced by the notion of identification, po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g to theprocessual nature of contemporary identities. Others have suggested that the analyticalvalue of the concept of <strong>identity</strong> is <strong>in</strong>sufficient to do justice to the vibrant character of thelives of multicultural <strong>in</strong>dividuals.Aga<strong>in</strong>st this background, it has been argued <strong>in</strong> this article that <strong>anthropology</strong>would benefit from the analytical value of the concept of the dialogical self for theexam<strong>in</strong>ation of the multiple identifications of the self <strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong>ter-cultural circumstances.The concept of the dialogical self is better equipped than any other notion to cover allaspects of the multidimensional practice of <strong>in</strong>tercultural exchange <strong>in</strong> the <strong>in</strong>dividualm<strong>in</strong>d to the extent that it reflects the <strong>in</strong>tercultural dialogue <strong>in</strong> the global world. By thesame token, however, it has been argued that the psychological debate about thedialogical self might take advantage of the ethnography of multiculturalism as carriedout by contemporary anthropologists to reflect on some of its core assumptions,especially regard<strong>in</strong>g the rise of ‘uncerta<strong>in</strong>ty’ <strong>in</strong> the global era <strong>and</strong> above all itsrelationship with the notion of ‘unity’.185

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