TG Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Understanding Culture,
Society, and Politics

Teacher’s Guide
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Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Teacher’s Guide
First Edition 2016
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Published by the Department of Education
Secretary: Br. Armin A. Luistro FSC
Undersecretary: Dina S. Ocampo, PhD
Development Team of the UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Teacher’s Guide
Anne Lan Candelaria (PhD) Jose Jowel Canuday (DPhil, Oxon.) Czarina Saloma (Dr. rer. soc.)
Nico N. Aquino Kalenna Lorene S. Asis Dr. Evelyn V. Avila Elisa Bustamante
DEPE
Reynora LaurencianoJeffrey Anthony F. ReyesNeil Vincent Sandoval
Cover Art: Quincy D. Gonzales Layout: Ivy Dumarada Illustrations: Jayson Villena
Management Team of the UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
Teacher’s Guide
Bureau of Curriculum Development Bureau of Learning Resources
D
Printed in the Philippines by ____________
Department of Education-Bureau of Learning Resources (DepEd-BLR)
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Email Address: blr.lrpd@deped.gov.ph / blr.lrqad@deped.gov.ph
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introducing Culture, Society, and Politics............................................1

Lesson 1: Making Sense of Our Everyday Experiences.........................................3
On culture...............................................................................................5
On society...............................................................................................7
On politics...............................................................................................9
Lesson 2: Understanding the Concepts of Culture, Society, and Politics.............11
Aspects of culture.................................................................................11
Sociological Approaches to the Study of Society.................................12
Discerning Politics............................................................................... 13
Chapter 2: Tracing Human Evolution and Sociocultural and Political

Transformations....................................................................................19
Lesson 1: Human Biological and Cultural Evolution..........................................21
The Concept and Study of Evolution.................................................. 22
The First Humans.................................................................................25
Cultural and Sociopolitical Evolution................................................. 29
Museums and Material Culture............................................................43
Chapter 3: Becoming a Member of Society...........................................................48

Lesson 1: Enculturation and Socialization..........................................................52
Lesson 2: Conformity and Deviance...................................................................58
Lesson 3: Human Dignity, Rights, and the Common Good.................................59
Chapter 4: Organizing Society................................................................................66

Lesson 1: Exploring Groups Within Society........................................................68
Lesson 2: Examining Cultural, Social, and Political Institutions........................71
Chapter 5: Ranking Groups in Society..................................................................81

Lesson 1: Social and Political Stratification.......................................................82
Theories of Social Stratification......................................................... 84
Global Stratification and Inequality................................................... 88
Chapter 6: Making Society Better..........................................................................99

Lesson 1: Final Lesson........................................................................................101
Additional Readings................................................................................................127
iii
Grade: 11 or 12
iv Core Subject Title: Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics No. of hours/semester:80 hours
All rights
reserved.
Course Description:
No part of This course uses insights from Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology to develop students’ awareness of cultural, social and political dynamics, and
this sensitivity to cultural diversity; provide them with an understanding of how culture, human agency, society and politics work; and engage them in the
material examination of the country’s current human development goals. At the end of the course, students should acquire ideas about human cultures, human agency,
may be
society and politics; recognize cultural relativism and social inclusiveness to overcome prejudices; and develop social and cultural competence to guide their
reproduce
d or interactions with groups, communities, networks, and institutions.
transmitted
in any form CONTENT PERFORMANCE LEARNING
or by any CONTENT CODE
STANDARD STANDARD COMPETENCY
means -
electronic A. Starting points for the understanding of The learners The learners: The learners:
or culture, society, and politics demonstrate an
mechanica understanding of:
l including
photocopyi
ng – 1. Sharing of social and cultural 1. human cultural 1. acknowledge human 1. articulate observations
UCSP11/12SPU-
without backgrounds of students as social variation, cultural variation, social onhuman cultural
written Ia-1
actors (examples: gender, social differences, social change, variation, social
permission
from the
socioeconomic class, ethnicity, differences, and political identities differences, social
DepEd religion, exceptionality/non- social change, change,and political
Central exceptionality, nationality) and political 2. adopt an open and critical identities
Office. identities attitude toward different
2. demonstrate curiosity and
2. Observations about social, political, social, political, and
an openness to explore the
and cultural behavior and phenomena 2. the cultural phenomena UCSP11/12SPU-
origins and dynamics of
(examples: food taboos, istambay, significance of through observation and Ia-2
culture and society, and
political dynasties, elections) studying reflection
political identities
culture, 3. appreciate the value
3. Observations on social, political,and society, and ofdisciplines of 3. analyze social, political, UCSP11/12SPU-
cultural change (examples: txting, politics Anthropology, Sociology, and cultural change Ib-3
transnational families, local public andPolitical Science as 4. recognize the common UCSP11/12SPU-
services, youth volunteerism) 3. the rationale social sciences concerns or intersections Ib-4
All
right
s
CONTENT PERFORMANCE LEARNING
reser CONTENT CODE
ved. STANDARD STANDARD COMPETENCY
No
part
for studying of anthropology,
of 4. Definition of anthropology, political anthropology, sociology, and political
this science, and sociology political science with respect to the
mate science, and phenomenon of change
rial sociology
may 5. identify the subjects of
be inquiry and goals of UCSP11/12SPU-
repro Anthropology, Political Ib-5
duce
d or Science, and Sociology
trans
B. Defining Culture, Society, and Politics 1. The concepts of 1. appreciate the nature of 1. explain anthropological
mitte
d in 1. Society as a group of people sharing a culture, society culture and society from the and sociological UCSPC11DCS-Ic-
any common culture and politics perspectives of perspectives on culture 6
form 2. Culture as a “complex whole which anthropology and sociology and society
or by encompasses beliefs, practices, values, 2. perspectives
any 2. describe society and
v attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, in/approaches to 2. demonstrate a holistic UCSPC11/12DCS-
mea culture as a complex
ns - symbols, knowledge, and everything the study of understanding of culture Ic-7
whole
elect that a person learns and shares as a culture, society, and society
ronic member of society.” (E.B. Tylor 1920 and politics
or 3. identify aspects of culture UCSP11/12DCS-
[1871]), and is: (i.e., 3. value cultural heritage and
mec and society
a. Dynamic, Flexible, & Adaptive comparative, express pride of place Ic-8
hanic
al b. Shared & Contested (given the historical, without being ethnocentric
inclu reality of social differentiation and structural- 4. raise questions toward a UCSP11/12DCS-
ding competing interests) functional,
phot
holistic appreciation of Id-9
ocop
c. Learned through socialization or interpretive, cultures and societies
ying enculturation critical)
– d. Patterned
witho e. Integrated and at times unstable 5. become aware of why and
UCSP11/12DCS-
ut
f. Transmitted through how cultural relativism
writte Id-10
socialization/enculturation mitigates ethnocentrism
n
g. Requires language and other
CONTENT CODE
vi forms of communication
h. Ethnocentrism and Cultural
All rights 6. identify forms of tangible
reserved. Relativism as orientations UCSP11/12DCS-
and intangible heritageand
No part of 3. Politics as the art of government, Ie-11
the threats to these
this public affairs, compromise and
material consensus, and power
may be
reproduce C. Looking back at Human Biocultural and 1. human origins Analyze key features of 1. trace the biological and
d or UCSP11/12HBS-
Social Evolution and the interrelationships of biological, cultural evolution of early
transmitte Ie-12
d in any 1. Biological and cultural evolution: from capacity for cultural and sociopolitical to modern humans
form or by Homo habilis (or earlier) to Homo culture processes in human evolution
any sapienssapiens in the fossil record 2. the role of that can still be used and 2. explore the significance of
means - 2. Cultural and sociopolitical evolution: culture in developed human material remains
electronic
from hunting and gathering to the human and artefactual evidencein UCSP11/12HBS-
or
mechanic agricultural, industrial, and post- adaptation interpreting cultural and If-13
al industrial revolutions 3. processes of social, including political
including a. The Neolithic Revolution cultural and and economic, processes
photocopy b. Early civilizations and the sociopolitical
ing –
without rise of the state evolution 3. recognize national, local,
written c. Democratization and specialized museums,
permissio and archaeological and
n from the historical sites as venues
DepEd UCSP11/12HBS-
to appreciate and reflect
Central If-14
Office. on the complexities of
biocultural and social
evolution as part of being
and becoming human
vii
All rights CONTENT PERFORMANCE LEARNING
reserved. CONTENT CODE
No part of STANDARD STANDARD COMPETENCY
this D. Becoming a member of society 1. how 1. identify norms and values
material
1. Enculturation/Socialization individuals to be observed in
may be 1. explain the development
reproduce a. Identity formation (identities, learn culture interacting with others in
of one’s self and others as UCSP11/12BMS-
d or disciplines, and aspirations) and become society, and the
transmitted a product of socialization Ig-15
b. Norms and values competent consequences of ignoring
in any form and enculturation
c. Statuses and roles (e.g. age, members of these rules
or by any
means - gender) society
electronic 2. Conformity and deviance
2. assess the rules of social
or a. Social control (gossip, social
mechanica interaction to maintain 2. identify the context,
ostracism, laws and punishments)
l including stability of everyday life content,processes, and
b. Forms of deviance (ritualism, UCSP11/12BMS-
photocopyi and the role of innovation consequences of
ng – retreatism, rebellion, and Ig-16
in response to problems enculturation and
without innovation)
written
and challenges socialization
3. Human dignity, rights, and the
permission
common good
from the
DepEd
2. how 3. recognize the value of 3. Identifies the social goals
Central individuals human rights and promote and the socially acceptable UCSP11/12BMS-
Office. should behave the common good means of achieving these Ih-17
as part of a goals
political
community
4. advocate inclusive UCSP11/12BMS-
citizenship Ih-18
5. promoteprotectionof
UCSP11/12BMS-
human dignity, rights, and
Ih-19
the common good
CONTENT CODE
viii E. How society is organized 1. cultural, 1. analyze aspects of social
All rights
1. Groups within society social, and organization
reserved. a. Primary and secondary groups political
No part b. In-groups and out-groups institutions as 2. identify one’s role in social 1. traces kinship ties and
of this UCSP11/12HSO-
c. Reference group sets of norms groups and institutions social networks
material IIi-20
d. Networks and patterns of
may be
reproduc 2. Formal organizations behavior that 3. recognize other forms of
ed or a. Bureaucracy relate to major economic transaction such
transmitt b. “McDonaldization” of society social interests as sharing, gift exchange,
ed in any and redistribution in his/her
form or
by any
F. Cultural, social and political institutions 2. social own society
means - 1. Kinship, marriage, and the household stratification
electronic a. Kinship by blood as the ranking 2. describe the organized
UCSP11/12HSO-
or Descent systems of individuals nature of social life and
mechanic IIi-21
(matrilateral, patrilineal, bilateral) according to rules governing behavior
al
including b. Kinship by marriage wealth, power,
photocop Marriage rules cross-culturally and prestige
ying – (monogamy vs. polygamy, post-marital
without residency rules, preferred marriage 3. social and
written
permissio
partners, divorce) political
n from c. Kinship by ritual (Compadrazgo) inequalities as 3. compare different social
the d. Family and the household features of forms of social
UCSP11/12HSO-
DepEd Nuclear, extended, and reconstituted societies and organization according to
Central IIj-22
families (separated, transnational) the global their manifest and latent
Office.
e. Politics of kinship (political dynasty, community functions
alliances)
2. Political and leadership structures

All
right
s
reser CONTENT PERFORMANCE LEARNING
CONTENT CODE
ved. STANDARD STANDARD COMPETENCY
No
part a. Political organization
of i. Bands
this ii. Tribes
mate iii. Chiefdoms
rial 4. analyze social and UCSP11/12HSO-
may iv. States and nations
political structures IIj-23
be b. Authority and legitimacy
repro i. Traditional
duce ii. Charismatic
d or
trans
iii. Rational
mitte 3. Economic Institutions
d in
a. Reciprocity 5. analyze economic
any
form b. Transfers organization and its UCSP11/12HSO-
or by ix c. Redistribution impacts on the lives of IIa-24
any d. Market transactions people in the society
mea e. Markets and state
ns -
elect 4. Nonstate institutions
ronic a. Banks and corporations
or
b. Cooperatives and trade unions 6. differentiate functions of
mec UCSP11/12HSO-
c. Transnational advocacy groups nonstate institutions in
hanic IIb-25
al d. Development agencies society
inclu e. International organizations
ding
phot 5. Education
ocop 7. evaluate how functions of
a. Functions of education in society UCSP11/12HSO--
ying education affect the lives
– (formal and nonformal) IIf-26
of people in society
witho i. Productive citizenry
ut ii. Self-actualization
writte iii. Primary education as a 8. promote primary UCSP11/12HSO-
n education as a human right IIf-27
human right
x CONTENT CODE
All rights
reserved.
6. Religion and belief systems 9. conduct participant
No part of a. Animism observation (e.g., attend,
this b. Polytheism describe, and reflect on a UCSP11/12HSO-
material c. Monotheism religious ritual of a IIg-28
may be d. Institutionalized religions different group; observe
reproduce
d or e. Separation of church and state elections practices)
transmitte 7. Health
d in any
form or by a. Culture-specific syndromes and
any illnesses (e.g., “bughat”,
10. recognize the practice of
means - “usog”/”buyag”)
electronic medical pluralism in light UCSP11/12HSO-
b. Systems of diagnosis, prevention
or of cultural diversity and IIg-29
and healing (e.g., traditional,
mechanica relativism
l including western, alternative healing
photocopyi systems)
ng – c. Health as a human right
without
written G. Social stratification
permission 1. Social desirables 11. examine stratification
from the UCSP11/12HSOI-
a. Wealth from the functionalist and
DepEd IIc-30
b. Power conflict perspectives
Central
Office. c. Prestige
2. Social mobility system
a. Open (Class) 12. identify characteristics of
UCSP11/12HSO-
b. Closed (Caste) the systems of
IId-31
stratification
xi
All rights CONTENT CODE
reserved.
No part of H. Social inequality
this 1. Access to financial, social, political,
material
may be
and symbolic capital
reproduce 2. Gender inequality
d or 3. Marginalization of ethnic and other 13. suggest ways to address UCSP11/12HSO-
transmitte minorities global inequalities IIe-32
d in any 4. Global stratification and inequality
form or by
any (e.g., relationships between states and
means - nonstate actors in the global
electronic community)
or
mechanic I. Social change and human agency 1. evaluate processes of social 1. identify new challenges
al 1. Invention (e.g., new of forms of media change faced by human UCSP11/12CSC-
including and social networking, technological populations in IIh-33
photocopy
ing –
change) 2. assess options and contemporary societies
without 2. Diffusion, acculturation, and alternatives for social
written globalization action by individuals and
permissio 3. Social contradictions, conflict, and communities
n from the change (e.g., inter-ethnic conflicts,
DepEd
class struggle, armed conflict, 1. agents/
Central
Office. terrorism, protests, gender issues) institutions,
4. Social movements (e.g., indigenous processes, and 2. describe how human
people’s rights, environmentalism, outcomes of societies adapt to new
UCSP11/12CSC-
feminism, religious fundamentalism, cultural, political, challenges in the physical,
IIi-34
revitalization movements) and social change social, and cultural
5. Demographic change (e.g., environment
transnational migration, Overseas
Filipino Workers)
6. New challenges to human adaptation
(e.g., climate change
7. Inclusive citizenship and participatory
governance
3. develop a plan of action UCSP11/12CSC-
All
right CONTENT PERFORMANCE LEARNING
CONTENT CODE
s STANDARD STANDARD COMPETENCY
reser
ved. for community-based IIj-35
No response to change
part
of
this
mate
rial GLOSSARY1
may
be
Acculturation A process of culture change due to contact between societies; often used to refer to subordinate tribal societies
repro adapting to more dominant societies
duce Agency A concept referring to the willed and voluntary nature of an individual’s life and action as opposed to the constraint
d or and determinism of social structures
trans Animism Belief in spirits dwelling in natural objects and phenomenon
mitte
d in Anthropology ‘The study of humans’; social science which encompasses the fields of physical or biological anthropology,
any archaeology, social or cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology
form Authority The exercise of legitimate power
or by xii Band A small social group (e.g. ranging from 6-50) occupying a territory, usually consisting of a kin group, and
any
mea
characteristic of societies subsisting by hunting and gathering. Bands are nomadic, fluid (in population size), and
ns - generally egalitarian
elect
ronic
1
or General References:
mec
hanic Bates, D. and E. Franklin. (2002). Cultural Anthropology. Boston: Pearson.
al Beilharz, P. and T. Hogan. 2006. Sociology: Place, Time and Division. Melbourne: Oxford University Press
inclu
Gezon, L. and C. Kottak. (2012). Culture. New York: McGraw Hill.
ding
phot
Heywood, A. (2013). Politics (4th Edition). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
ocop Macionis, J. 2012. Sociology (14th ed). Singapore: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd
ying Miller, B. (2012). Cultural Anthropology (7th Edition). Boston: Pearson.
– North, D. (1991). “Institutions.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), pp. 97-112.
witho Schaefer, R. (2001). Sociology (7th Edition). New York: McGraw Hill.
ut
writte
n
xiii
Bilateral kinship The kinship system wherein blood relationships are traced through both father and mother.(Also called Cognatic
All rights descent.)
reserved.
No part of
Caste system A hereditary system of rank, usually religiously dictated, that tend to be fixed
this Chiefdom A political system in which kin groups are linked together through a political (or religious) hierarchy. Leadership is
material monopolized by highly ranked members who inherit their political roles
may be Citizenship May be defined as: (a) identification of an individual based on a formal-legal status coterminous with the emergence
reproduce of states; or (b) shared membership of a political community in which conception [of] citizens are political actors
d or
transmitte constituting political spaces
d in any Class A term used by Max Weber to refer to a group of people who have a similar level of wealth and income
form or by Class system A social ranking based primarily on economic position in which achieved characteristics can influence mobility
any Closed system A social system in which the position of each individual is influenced by his or her ascribed status and there is little or
means -
no possibility of individual mobility
electronic
or Compadrazgo The establishment of ties between godparents and godchildren, and ‘coparents’ through ritual; ritual ‘coparenthood’
mechanic Conformity In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” refers to the pursuit of cultural goals through approved means
al Cultural relativism The ethical insistence that other cultures can only be evaluated and understood in terms of their own standards and
including values
photocopy
ing –
Culture The system of knowledge, norms and values more or less shared by members of a particular society
without Culture-specific (or culture- A set of associated symptoms that is identified as a particular illness or ailment by the group itself; ‘folk illness’
written bound) syndrome
permissio Deviance The recognized violation of cultural norms
n from the
DepEd
Diffusion The process by which discrete cultural elements (e.g. ideas, artifacts, practices) may spread from one society to
Central another
Office. Discovery The process of making known or sharing the existence of an aspect of the world
Education The systematic transfer of knowledge and skills from one generation to the next through teaching, training or
research; may take place in formal (ex: schools) or informal (ex: home) settings
Enculturation A child’s incorporation into his or her society through learning of the culture
Environmentalism Concern, advocacy or work toward protecting nature or the environment
Ethnicity One’s identification with social group that shares cultural traditions, languages, social experiences, or ancestry
Ethnocentrism Viewing other peoples and ways of life in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions
Family A set of people related by blood, marriage (or some agreed-upon relationship), or adoption, who share the primary
responsibility for reproduction and caring for members of society
Feminism/Feminist The various individuals, theories, doctrines, and social movements concerned with the experience of women,
especially the oppression and unequal treatment of women
Formal organization A large secondary group organized to achieve its goals efficiently
Gender The socially-constructed attitudes, meanings, beliefs, and behaviors associated with the sex differences of being born
male or female that are learned through the process of socialization
Gift exchange See Reciprocity
xiv Globalization The economic, cultural, and political interdependence and interconnectedness of all nations in the planet, best
All rights captured in the definition by Roland Robertson: “the time-space compression of the world and the increased
reserved. consciousness o the world as a whole”
No part of Government One of the institutions involved in governance; one of the four elements of the state tasked to make, implement, and
this interpret law
material Group Any number of people with similar norms, values, and expectations who regularly and consciously interact
may be
reproduce Human agency See Agency
d or In-group A social group toward which a member feels respect and loyalty
transmitted Institutions Humanly devised constraints that structure political, economic and social interactions; stable, recurring patterns of
in any form behavior; hence, political institutions are not the same as political organizations
or by any
means -
Innovation In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” a type of deviance characterized by the use of unconventional means rather than
electronic conventional means to achieve a culturally approved goal
or Invention The process of combining existing cultural items into a form that did not previously exist
mechanica Market transactions Profit-oriented impersonal exchanges
l including Matrilineal descent Kin relations are traced only on the mother’s side
photocopyi
ng – McDonaldization The process in which the four principles of the fast food industry, namely, efficiency, calculability, efficiency, and
without control, have come to dominate certain sectors of society throughout the world
written Medical pluralism The recognition of more than one medical system (e.g. Western and alternatives)
permission Monogamy Marriage rule to have only one spouse, or one spouse at a time (serial monogamy)
from the
Monotheism Belief that there is only one god
DepEd
Central Nation A group of people with a deeply shared fundamental identification often welded together by ties of blood
Office. relationships, a common language (often but not always), literature, history and tradition
Neolithic Revolution The process of domestication of plants and animals by hunters and gatherers, together with all the associated social
and demographic changes: population growth, sedentarization and settlement, craft specialization, production of
surplus, social differentiation and the emergence of a ruling class, the rise of cities and civilizations (with writing,
monumental architecture, fine arts and sciences), trade and the State; the ‘New Stone Age’ level of technology
marked by polished stone tools and food production
Norms Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members
Open system A social system in which the position of each individual is influenced by his or her achieved status
Out-group A social group toward which person feels a sense of competition or opposition
Participant observation Qualitative research methodology in which the researcher participates in and to a certain extent becomes part of the
society under observation
All
right Patrilineal descent Descent traced a line of male ancestors. (Also called Agnatic descent)
s Political capital A sentiment/ overall image that a politician, elected official or candidate has a legitimate political mandate to get
reser
ved.
things done in the eyes of the voting public; social and symbolic capital, winning elections, pursuing policies that
No have public support, and performing favors maybe used to gain political capital
part Political Science Is the systematic study of politics
of Politics May be defined as: (1) the art of government, (2) public affairs, (3) compromise and consensus, and (4) power
this Marriage to more than one spouse: Polygyny - marriage of a man to two or more wives; Polyandry - marriage of a
Polygamy
mate
rial
woman to two or more husbands
may Polytheism Belief in many gods
be Post-marital residence rules Rules on where a newly married couple should reside (e.g. Patrilocal - men remain in their territory and wives marry
repro in [also called Virilocal]; Matrilocal - residence with the wife’s kin [also called Uxurilocal]; Neolocal - residence in a
duce new place)
d or
trans Primary group A small social group whose members share personal and lasting relationships
mitte Rebellion In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” a type of deviance characterized by the rejection of both cultural goals and
d in conventional means and the formation of a counterculture supporting alternatives to the existing social order
any Reciprocity Recognition of obligations to give, receive, and reciprocate in kind; ‘gift exchanges’ that create bonds between
form
persons or acknowledge personal ties
or by xv
any Redistribution The distribution of surplus which flows into and is accumulated by a political center before being redistributed
mea outward.
ns - Reference group A social group that serves as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions
elect Religion Beliefs and behavior concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces
ronic
or Retreatism In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” a type of deviance characterized by the rejection of both cultural goals and
mec conventional means
hanic Ritualism In Robert Merton’s “Strain Theory,” a type of deviance characterized by the inability to reach a cultural goal because
al of rigid adherence to conventional means
inclu Role Behavior expected of someone who holds a particular status
ding
phot Secondary group A large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a specific goal or activity
ocop Social actor An individual endowed with human agency
ying Social capital A concept that refers to the positive connection between people and the virtues that emerge from them such as trust
– and reciprocity; emphasizes that social bonds are a form of capital used for profit-making
witho
ut
Social change The transformation of culture and social institutions over time
writte Social control The techniques and strategies for preventing deviant human behavior in any society
n Social dynamics The determinants of social change; to be understood in relation to social statics, or the requirements for social order
Social dysfunction Any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society
xvi
All rights
reserved. Social function The consequences of any social pattern for the operation of society as a whole
No part of Social group Two or more people who identify with and interact with one another
this Social inequality A condition in which members of a society have different amounts of wealth, prestige, or power
material
may be
Social institution The major spheres of social life, or societal subsystems, organized to meet human needs
reproduce Social mobility A change in position within the social hierarchy.
d or Social movement An organized activity that encourages or discourages social change
transmitted Social network A series of social relationships that links a person directly to others and therefore indirectly to still more people
in any form
Socialization The lifelong process whereby people learn the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate for individuals as members of
or by any
means - a particular society
electronic Social stratification A structured ranking of entire groups of people that perpetuates unequal economic rewards, power, and prestige in a
or society
mechanica Social structure Any relatively stable pattern of social behavior
l including
Society People who interact in a defined territory and share a culture
photocopyi
ng – Sociology The systematic study of society
without State An entity of power and authority within a given population and territory; Has four elements: territory, population,
written government, and sovereignty
permission Status A social position that a person holds
from the
DepEd Symbolic capital A concept used by Pierre Bourdieu to point out the way in which resources can have the quality of a type of “capital,”
Central but not seen as such. For example, educational qualifications allow one to do many things, including learn more and
Office. earn more, and thus they are a form of capital, a source of profit
Transfers Goods/value are passed to another without expectation of return
Tribe Stateless, small-scale society with distinctive language and culture engaged in subsistence-oriented food production
Values Collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper—or bad, undesirable, and improper—in a
culture
All
Code Book Legend
rights
reserve
d. No Sample: UCSP11/12SPU-Ia-1
part of
this
material
may be LEGEND SAMPLE DOMAIN/ COMPONENT CODE
reprodu
ced or
transmit Learning Area and
Understanding Culture, Starting points for the understanding of culture
ted in Strand/ Subject or SPU
any Society and Politics and society
First Entry Specialization UCSP11/12
form or
by any
means - Grade Level Grade 11 or 12 Defining Culture and Society from the
electroni DCS
c or perspectives of anthropology and sociology
Starting points for the
mechani Domain/Content/
cal Uppercase Letter/s
Component/ Topic
understanding of culture SPU
includin and society Looking back at Human Biocultural and Social
g HBS
- Evolution
photoco
pying –
without Roman Numeral
written *Zero if no specific quarter
Quarter 1st Quarter I
permissi
Becoming a member of society BMS
on from
Lowercase Letter/s
the
DepEd *Put a hyphen (-) in
between letters to indicate
Week Week one a
Central How society is organized HSO
Office. more than a specific week
-
Cultural, Social, and Political Change Sources
articulate observations CSC
of social, cultural, and political change
on human cultural
variation, social
Arabic Number Competency
differences, social
1
change, and political
identities
Directions
1. Choose one important institution in Philippine society that was discussed.
2. Conduct a participant-observation of the setting of the institution (for
example, a marketplace), event (for example, a trade fair), or activities (for
example, what the groups did from the start of the event up until it was
finished).
3. Write an essay that describes how this institution works in terms of actors,
rules governing the behavior of actors, goals of the institution, and what was
done to attain these goals.
4. How important is this institution to society? Why?
5. Why do you think this institution persists to this day?
References
1. Ember, Carol R., Melvin Ember, and Peter N. Perigrine. 2011. Anthropology. Boston:
Prentice Hall.
2. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland (2001).Chapter 3.”Fieldwork and Its Interpretation.” Small
Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology, 2nd Edition.
London/Virginia: Pluto Press. 24-39.
3. Giddens, Anthony and Mitchell Duneier (2013). Introduction to Sociology, 9 thEdition. New
York: W. W. Norton & Company.
4. Macionis, John (2012). Sociology, 14th Edition. Boston: Pearson.
5. Marshall, Gordon (1998). A Dictionary of Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
6. Meyer, John (1977). “The Effects of Education as an Institution”, The American Journal of
Sociology, 83(1), 55-77.
7. North, Douglass (1991). “Institutions”. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5(1), pp. 97-112.
8. Shimizu, Hiromu 1991. “Filipino Children in Family and Society” in: Department of
Sociologyand Anthropology (ed.) SA 21: Selected Readings. 106-125.
9. Parreñas, Rhacel S. (2001). “Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender and
Intergenerational Relations inFilipino Transnational Families.”Feminist Studies, 27, pp. 361-
390.
10. Service, Elman (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New
York: Random House.
11. Van Rooy, Alison (1998). Civil Society and the Aid Industry. London: Earthscan.
12. Weber, Max (1961). Social Action and Its Types. In T. Parsons et al. (eds.), Theories of
Society:Foundations of Modern Sociological Theory. New York: The Free Press. 173-179.
80
CHAPTER 5
RANKING GROUPS IN SOCIETY
I. INTRODUCTION
Summary
This chapter explains the meaning of social stratification, social inequality, and
poverty. It provides various explanations for the existence of social stratification—
from looking at the functions it performs for the whole society to examining the
accompanying social conflicts as it benefits only a few in society. It also introduces a
micro-level analysis of social stratification that emphasizes the meanings attached to
status symbols.
An article by Herbert Gans then identifies the functions of poverty in society, while
pointing out that while poverty is functional to society, there are ways to solve it.
Within a country, there are categories of people distinguished by physical or cultural
difference that a society sets apart and subordinates. The chapter thus examines
gender and ethnic stratification and the issues of prejudice, discrimination, and
marginalization of minorities in a given society. The work of Rudy Rodil shows how
ethnic marginalization and social inequality unfolds in Philippine society. Rodil
illustrates how the enactment of land registration and titling legislations as well as
policies that facilitated the resettlement of farmers from Visayas and Luzon to
Mindanao between the 1900s and 1960s contributed to the minoritization of Moro
and indigenous communities.
Since social stratification does not only involve people within a single country but is
also a worldwide pattern, the discussion turns to global stratification, in which some
nations are far more economically productive than others. The chapter examines two
major explanations for global inequalities—Modernization Theory and Dependency
Theory—and the solutions they offer for reducing the gaps between countries.
Walden Bello’s article completes the discussion by pointing out the repercussions of
globalization on poorer countries, particularly the devastating effects of free trade and
monopolistic competition principles.
Focus Question
How are people ranked according to power, wealth, and prestige in a given society
and what are the consequences of this ranking?
81
II. CONTENT
Social and Political Stratification

1. Social Desirables
2. Social Mobility System
i. Open (Class)
ii. Closed (Caste)
3. Social Inequality
i. Access to Social, Political, and Symbolic Capital
ii. Gender Inequality
iii. Ethnic Minorities
iv. Other Minorities (e.g., persons with disabilities)
v. Global Inequality (relationships between states and nonstate actors in the
global community)
III. STANDARD
Content Standard
The learners demonstrate an understanding of:
 The social stratification as the ranking of individuals according to wealth,
power, and prestige
 The social and political inequalities as features of societies and the global
community
IV. LEARNING COMPETENCIES
1. Examine stratification from the functionalist and conflict perspectives

2. Identify characteristics of the systems of stratification
3. Suggest ways to address global inequalities
V. LESSON
Social and Political Stratification

Explore
Activity 1.Throwback Time
As the name of the activity suggests, this activity will allow students to revisit
personal experiences by answering the following questions:
82
 When was the last time you experienced “hunger” due to lack of provisions
(e.g., money, resources) to buy food?
 What actions did you take to satisfy your hunger?
 Did you ask for help from anyone (e.g., family members, close friends)
toaddress the concern? Why or why not?
 Did anyone extend help?
 Is there anyone to blame for the difficult situation you experienced?
Ask someone from your class to share his/her story using the questions as their guide.
Process Questions
1. What did you feel while doing the activity above?
2. What were your thoughts upon hearing the experiences of your classmates?
3. What does this experience tell you about your socioeconomic status?
The teacher will link the last question to the lesson proper on social stratification
Before the teacher proceeds to the discusssion proper, it is but imperative to diagnose
the students’ schema regarding the concepts on stratification.
Activity 2.KWLHS Matrix

Let the students accomplish the first two columns of the following matrix. The
three remaining columns will be answered after all the content and reading materials
have been thoroughly discussed and examined.
What I Know What I Want What I Have How Did I And So What
to Know Learned Learn
83
Firm up
Key Concepts
Social stratification is a system by which a society ranks categories of people in a
hierarchy according to power, wealth, and prestige (Macionis 2012: 224). Power,
wealth, and prestige are referred to as social desirables, or rewards of social positions
of statuses. Wealth pertains to ownership or control of resource. Power is the ability
to compel obedience or control a number of people. Prestige refers tosocial
recognition and deference. People in different positions have different access to
wealth, power, and prestige. These differences in society give rise to social
inequality.
Macionis (2012) points out that in certain societies, some people experience social
mobility orthe change in position within the social hierarchy. Vertical mobility
refers to the change from one status to another that is higher or lower.Individuals who
rose from modest beginnings to fame and fortune experience upward mobility. Some
people move downward because of business failures, unemployment, or illness. In
contrast, horizontal mobility isthe change from one status to another that is roughly
equivalent. This is the case when people switch from one job to another at about the
same social level.
There are two types of social stratification systems. Closed systems allow for little
change in social position, while open systems, permit much more social mobility.
Closed systems are called caste systems, and more open systems are called class
systems.A caste system is social stratification based on ascription, or birth.India’s
caste system and apartheid, or separation of the races in South Africa, are examples of
a caste system. A class system, in contrast, issocial stratification based on both birth
and individual achievement. The system is common in industrial societies. In some
societies such as the United Kingdom and Japan, social stratification mixes caste and
class (Macionis 2012: 228).
Theories of social stratification

A. Functionalist perspective
According to the structural-functional approach, social inequality exists
because it plays a vital part in the continued existence of society. Kingsley
Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) argue that the more important a position is to
society, the more rewards a society attaches to it.Rewarding important work
with income, prestige, and power encourages people to do these jobs and to
work better, longer, and harder. Macionis (2012: 231—233) summarizes the
criticisms of Davis-Moore Theory as follows:
 How do we assess the importance of a particular occupation? Do rewards

actually reflect the contribution someone makes to society? Do corporate
84
executives, for example, deserve mega-salaries for their contributions to
society?
 Living in a society that places so much emphasis on money, we tend to
overestimate the importance of high-paying work. How does one see the
value of work that is not oriented toward making money?
 It likewise ignores how social inequality may promote conflict and even
outright revolution. This criticism leads us to the social-conflict
approach...
B. Social conflict perspective

Marxist social-conflict perspective
Social conflict analysis draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber
(Macionis 2012: 232–234). Rather than viewing social stratification as
benefiting society as a whole, it emphasizes how it benefits some people and
disadvantages others. According to Marx, social stratification is created and
maintained by one group in order to protect and enhance its own economic
interests. Since stratification is not essential in a classless society. As
expected, the Marxist view is criticized for denying the Davis-Moore theory:
that a system of unequal rewards is necessary to place talented people in the
right jobs and to motivate them to work hard.
Weberian social conflict perspective

Max Weber claimed that social stratification involves three distinct
dimensions of inequality: class, social status or prestige, and power
(Macionis 2012: 234–235). A public school teacher might exercise great
power as a source of knowledge and wisdom in the community yet have little
wealth or social prestige. Influenced by Weber’s ideas, sociologists use the
term socioeconomic status (SES) to refer to a composite ranking based on
various dimensions of social inequality, and not only on economic position or
class as Marx argued.
C. Symbolic Interactionist perspective

The symbolic-interaction approach, a micro-level analysis and influenced by
the ideas of Weber, explains that we size up people by looking forclues to their
social standing. We can know about a person’s position in society through
status symbol, anything than can give an idea as to what stratum an
individual belongs to. Among some groups, conspicuous consumption,
orbuying and displaying products that make a “statement” about social class,
happens. For Thorstein Veblen (1953, orig. 1899, cited in Macionis 2012:
235–236; 546) who introduced the concept, conspicuous consumption
involves people buying expensive products not because they need them but to
show off their wealth.
85
Inequality
One important dimension of social stratification is income inequality. Poverty
is a state in which resources, usually material but sometimes cultural, are
lacking. Relative poverty isthe lack of resources of some people in relation to
those who have more. Absolute poverty refers to a lack of resources that is
life threatening (Macionis 2012: 257).
Social ranking likewise involves gender and ethnicity. Minority refers to any
category of people distinguished by physical or cultural difference that a
society sets apart and subordinates (Macionis 2012: 303). In societies that give
more power and other resources to men than to women, gender is an important
dimension of social stratification (Macionis 2012: 299). Gender is the
meaning a culture attaches to being female or male (see Chapter 3). Gender
stratification is the unequal distribution of wealth, power, and privilege
between men and women. Often, as a result, women increasingly join the
ranks of the poor, giving rise to a phenomenon referred to as the feminization
of poverty.
Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage based on common ancestry, language,

or religion that gives a group people a distinctive social identity (Macionis
2012: 320). People of a particular ethnicity can be a target of prejudice, just
like those of a particular social class, sex, sexual orientation, age, political
affiliation, or physical disability. Prejudice isa rigid and unfair generalization
about a category of people. A related concept, discrimination, is the unequal
treatment of various categories of people. Macionis (2012: 323–324) clarifies
that prejudice refers to attitudes while discrimination involves actions. Both
prejudice and discrimination can be either positive (favorable views,
providing special advantages) or negative (unfavorable views, creating
obstacles). Also, these biases may be built into the operation of society’s
institutions such as schools, hospitals, the police, and the workplace. This is
referred to as institutional prejudice and discrimination.
Social reproduction of inequality

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1990) points out that various linguistic and
cultural competencies that some parents pass on to their children are capital.
He highlights the importance of family background to one’s social status.
Cultural capital refers to cultural advantages coming from a “good home.”
Social capital refers to “features of social organization, such as networks,

norms, and trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual
benefit” (Putnam 1993:35). Putnam argues the social capital embodied in
norms and networks of civic engagement seems to be a precondition for
economic development, as well as for effective government. Many studies
86
have, however, documented how dynamics of social capital may result in
social exclusion as nonmembers of an organization or networks may not have
access to the resources otherwise available to members.
Symbolic capital refers to the resources available to an individual on the basis

of honor, prestige, or recognition. Graduating from a certain university, for
example, may have symbolic capital in the context of looking for a job.
Bourdieu (1984) points out that symbolic capital can come from the
possession and appropriation of objects with a perceived or concrete sense of
value. For example, a watch worn by a Hollywood actress possesses symbolic
capital because of the prestige of the one wearing it, which in turn
distinguishes the person wearing it.
Political capital refers to the goodwill that a politician or political policy can
build up with the public through the pursuit of popular policies. This goodwill
can be then be mobilized to achieve other objectives such as the passing of
unpopular policies.
Activity 3.Stop, Look, Examine (Triad)

Instruct the students to form a group composed of three members. They will analyze
key sociological perspectives onstratification by citing situation/condition where it
overtly manifests. They will also give their reaction/s to it.
Key Ideas Manifestation/s Reaction/s
Social inequality exists because it plays a vital part in the smooth operation of society.
Social stratification is created and maintained by one group in order to protect and enhance its own economic interests.
We size up people by looking for clues to their social standing.
87
Process Questions
1. Is social and political stratification a must for a society to exist? Why or why
not?
2. What is the difference between vertical and horizontal mobility?
3. How do wealth, power, and prestige affect the social stratum of an individual?
4. Is stratification exclusive within the parameters of economic dimensions?
Prove your answer.
5 How does conflict perspective examine social stratification?
6 Among the sociological perspectives discussed, which do you think best
explains why social and political stratification exists in society? Why?
Firm up
Global stratification and inequality

Social stratification involves not just people within a single country; it is also a
worldwide pattern with some nations far more economically productive than others.
One system of classifying countries is according to a Three Worlds Model:
The “First World” is made up of rich, industrial, capitalist countries, while the
“Second World” refers to less industrialized socialist countries. The non-
industrialized poor countries comprise the “Third World.” Macionis (2012) notes that
in this model, the capitalist West (the First World) and the socialist East (the Second
World) are against each other, while other nations (the Third World) remain more or
less on the sidelines. Changes in Eastern Europe and the collapse of the former Soviet
Union in the early 1990s meant the end of the “Second World,” and the usefulness of
the three worlds model.
The revised system of classification is not based on ideology or political structure

but on the economic development of countries (United Nations Development
Programme 2010 and the World Bank 2011, as cited in Macionis 2012: 271).
High-income countries: The 72 high-income countries are those with the highest
overall standards of living. These nations have a per capita gross domestic product
(GDP) greater than $12,000.
Middle-income countries: The 70 middle-income countries are those with a standard

of living about average for the world as a whole. Their per capita GDP is less than
$12,000 but greater than $2,500.
Low-income countries: The remaining 53 low-income countries are those with a per
capita GDP less than $2,500, and a low standard of living. Most people in these
nations are poor.
88
Theories of global stratification
There are two major explanations for inequality among nations: Modernization theory
and Dependency theory (Macionis 2012: 280-281).
1. Modernization theory. Walt Rostow explains global inequality in terms of

technological and cultural differences between nations. Nations become rich
by developing advanced technology, a process that depends on a culture that
encourages innovation and change toward higher living standards. Rostow
identifies four stages of development:
 Traditional stage: People’s lives are built around families and local
communities (Example: Bangladesh)
 Take-off stage: A market emerges as people produce goods not just for
their own use but also to trade with others for profit. (Example:
Thailand)
 Drive to technological maturity: The ideas of economic growth and
higher living standards gain widespread support (Example: Mexico)
 High mass consumption: Advanced technology fuels mass production
and mass consumption as people now “need” countless goods.
(Example: the United States of America)
How to address global inequalities? Rostow’s modernization theory

highlights the role of technology transfer and foreign aid. Accordingly, rich
nations can help poor nations by providing technology to control population
size, increase food production, and expand industrial output and by providing
foreign aid to support economic development.
2. Dependency theory. This views global inequality as a result of the historical

exploitation of poor nations by rich ones. It maintains that colonialism created
global inequality beginning 500 years ago, giving rise to rich nations and
underdeveloped poor nations. This process continues today in the form of
neocolonialism, or the economic exploitation of poor nations by multinational
corporations. Immanuel Wallerstein’s model of the capitalist world
economy identified three categories of nations:
 Core: the world’s high-income countries, which are home to
multinational corporations
 Semiperiphery: the world’s middle-income countries, with ties to core
nations
 Periphery: the world’s low-income countries, which provide cheap
labor and raw materials, and a vast market for industrial products
How to address global inequalities? The dependency theory claims that

three factors, namely export-orientation, a lack of industrial capacity, and
foreign debt, make poor countries dependent on rich nations and prevent their
economic development.
89
Andre Gunder Frank’s dependency theory argues that countries in the
Periphery must cut the “umbilical cord” that connects them to the Center, if
they were to become developed countries themselves.
Activity 4.MoDe Diagram

After examining Modernization and Dependency theories, let the students enumerate
(based on their understanding) the differences between the two theories in terms of
their solutions to global inequality. Below the diagram is a box where students will
write three or more solutions/programs that address global poverty.
Modernization Dependency
Theory Theory
THE BOX OF GLOBAL EQUALITY
1.
2.
3.
90
Deepen
Material:Gans, Herbert. 1991. “The Uses of Poverty,”Down to Earth Sociology, J.

Henslin (ed.). New York: The Free Press. pp. 327–333
Guide Questions
1. What are the economic, cultural, and political functions of the poor?
2. What could be the functional alternatives to poverty and how can these
eliminate poverty?
Summary
Although an analysis of poverty in American society, this article offers insights into
the poverty in Philippine society. Gans shows that the continued existence of the poor
in society is due to the fact that they perform vital services (functions) for society.
Functionalism, one of the theoretical approaches in Sociology maintains that
conditions persist in society only if they benefit or perform functions for society or
some of its parts. Gans then identifies those functions and categorized them into
economic, sociocultural, and political functions. In the first set, poverty makes
possible the existence of a number of respectable professions and occupations;
ensures that society’s “dirty work” will be done; subsidizes a variety of economic
activities that benefit the affluent; and prolongs the economic usefulness of goods.
The sociocultural functions performed by the poor include: being identified and
punished as alleged or real deviants in order to uphold the legitimacy of conventional
norms; offering vicarious participation to the rest of the population in the uninhibited
sexual, alcoholic,narcotic, and other behaviors which the poor are thought to indulge
in; creating culture that would later be adopted by the more affluent; guaranteeing the
status of those who are not poor; aiding the upward mobility of groupsjust above
them in the class hierarchy; and keeping the aristocracy busy, thus justifying its
continued existence. Finally, the poor perform the following political functions:
absorbing the costs of change and growth in society; facilitating and stabilizing the
political process; and by upholding conventional norms, support certain ideologies or
policies. Gans, however, points out that while poverty is often functional, it has many
more dysfunctions than functions. Thus, he ends the article with some functional
alternatives such as paying “dirty workers” decent wages. The challenge remains: the
elimination of poverty through functional alternatives would generate dysfunctions
for the affluent or powerful. Poverty can, therefore, be eliminated only when it
become dysfunctional for the affluent or powerful, or when the powerless obtain
enough power to change society.
Material:Rodil, Rudy B. 2004. The Minoritization of Indigenous Communities in

Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Davao City: Alternate Forum for
Research in Mindanao
91
Guide questions
1. Who are the minority peoples in the Philippines?
2. How were indigenous communities minoritized and marginalized in
Mindanao and Sulu?
 In what ways do national government policies contribute to the
marginalization of minority populations?
Summary
Muslim (Moro) and indigenous peoples (lumad) comprise the majority of the
population in Mindanao in the years before the American colonial government
imposed its rule over the Philippines.Communities associated with both groups
settled and moved freely across the vastness of the region. People occupied and
cultivated lands based on temporary distribution and usage arrangements under the
stewardship of highly respected community leaders. That traditional pattern of
population settlement and distribution, however, shifted after the colonial government
issued a public land registration and titling policies in the early 1900s.
These land laws required all the residents of the Philippine islands, including
Muslims and indigenous people, to register and then apply for the titling of the lands
that they and their ancestors had occupied since time immemorial. In justifying the
disenfranchisement of native communities, the American government argued that all
lands across the Philippine archipelago belonged to the Spanish crown from the time
of conquest but were effectively transferred to US sovereign control on the basis of
the 1898 Treaty of Paris.
Communities that were not accustomed to or had opposed the imposition of colonial
system of land registry and titles failed to register or seek title for the land. As a
consequence, the native communities were no longer considered legitimate stewards
of their own lands. On the strength of US-enacted laws, persons and families who are
not native to Mindanao managed to own tracts of land including those occupied by
Muslim communities and indigenous peoples. The problem was further complicated
when the American colonial government and a succession of administrations under an
independent Philippine government pursued a series of Mindanao land resettlement
programs for landless farmers from the Visayas and Luzon. The programs spurred
massive migration into Mindanao and the acquisition of new land titles that were
already occupied by Moro and lumad. The scale of migration was quite vast that it
altered population patterns in the region.By the 1980s, farmers with roots in Luzon
and the Visayas outnumbered the population of Muslims and indigenous peoples. As a
result, the settler population became the majority while Muslims and indigenous
peoples were minoritized and then marginalized.
92
Activity 5. Simulating Marginalization
This activity places learners in a position to experience and reflect about the
relationship between the privileged and marginalized groups of people in a society. To
accomplish this, teachers may initiate the following:
1. Organize the class into majority and minority groups, then set them out into a
quiz bee based on questions taken from “The Minoritization of Indigenous
Communities in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago” reading.
2. The teachers may prepare at least ten sets of questions from the reading and
directly ask both groups about them. The teachers, however, should stack the
rules of the game against the minority group to ensure that the majority wins.
3. To stack the game unfairly, 60 percent of the total number of learners in the
class should be designated as the majority,with 40 percent as the minority.
4. To further make the game unfair, teachers may instruct learners in the
minority group to prepare themselves a mouth cover, which they should take
to class.
5. Before commencing the quiz bee, the teacher should instruct the minority
group to wear their mouth covers and restrict them from speaking unless
granted permission.
6. During the question-and-answer activity, the teachers should allow the
majority group to open their notes and read, but restrict the minority from
doing so.
7. In fielding the questions, the teachers may call the majority most of the time
and the minority the least of the time.
8. The teachers should also let the majority talk freely to explain and argue their
answers but only allow the minority to do so if they raise their hands and ask
permission. The teacher smay ignore the minority’s raised hands most of the
time.
9. The majority should win the game and earn the most correct answers to the
ten questions asked.
10. After declaring the members of the majority group as the winner, ask the
learners to settle down and listen to the processing of the activity very
carefully. Explain the game using the questions in the process questions.
Process Questions
1. How did the majority and the minority feel after realizing that the game
favored or was stacked against them?
2. Did anyone feel that the game was rigged and unfair? Explain why.
3. Did anyone in the game feel the need to break the rules of the game sometime
during the quiz bee? Explain.
4. Did anyone stop participating when he/she felt that the game was unfair?
Explain.
5. How did this game apply to the situation that Rodil described in the reading?
6. Who are the people represented by those with themouth cover and those
without in the context of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago?
93
7. Who are the marginalized people in your community? How were they
marginalized?
8. Discuss what can be done to end the marginalization of indigenous
communities and the Morosand lumad of Mindanao.
Material: Bello, Walden. 2005. “Multilateral Punishment: The Philippines in the

WTO (1995–2003),” The Anti-Development State: The Political Economy of
Permanent Crisis in the Philippines. Quezon City: UP Diliman Press.131–187
Guide Questions
1. What is trade liberation and how does it affect economies of developing
countries such as the Philippines?
2. Is it possible to achieve a market that is fair to both big and small players?
3. What can the Philippines do to help our farmers and local producers?
Summary
Walden Bello discusses the repercussions of globalization on the Philippine
agricultural sector, particularly the devastating effects of free trade and monopolistic
competition principles lodged in the GATT-WTO (General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade-World Trade Organization). His work analyzes the impact of the Philippines’
participation in the WTO beginning in 1995 when it officially became a member.His
study reveals that the country derives no benefits and instead incurs tremendous costs
most especially the agriculture sector that produces rice, corn, and vegetables, and
raises poultry. It has displaced a significant number of producers and farmers with the
unrestricted imports of similar agricultural produce with a much lower price.
Ironically, trading powers such as the United States, the European Union, and
Australia have restricted the entry of Philippine products such as tuna and bananas to
protect their own producers.The study critiques the neoliberal assumption that trade
liberalization, rather than aggressive state support, will improve the Philippine
agriculture sector.
Activity 6. Fact or Fiction

Based on the article, “The Uses of Poverty,” identify if each “function” presented in
the first column is applicable in the context of Filipino society. Write Fact if it is
applicable and Fiction if it is not on the second column. Substantiate your answer by
providing evidences on the third column. The first item serves as an example.
Fact or
Function of Poverty Proof
Fiction
Household helpers, construction
1. Ensures that “dirty workers, and other menial jobs are
Fact
work” will be done provided by the poor members of the
Philippine society
94
Fact or
Function of Poverty Proof
Fiction
2. Subsidizes a variety of
economic activities that
benefit the affluent
3. Creates jobs for a
number of professions
4. Prolongs the economic
usefulness of goods and
services
5. Uphold the legitimacy of
social norms
6. Offers vicarious
participation to the rest
of the population in the
uninhibited sexual,
alcoholic, and narcotic
PY
behavior
7. Creates“culture” for the
affluent’s consumption
O
C
8. Guarantees the status of
those who are not poor
9. Aids the upward
mobility of groups
above them
10. Helps keep the
aristocracy busy
11. Absorbs the costs of
change and growth in
the society
EP
12. Facilitates and stabilizes
the political process
Process Questions
1. Are all the functions of poverty enumerated by Herbert Gans applicable or
relevant to the Philippine setting? If not, what could be the possible reason(s)
for this?
2. Do you agree with Gans that poverty has its functions in any society? Why or
why not?
3. What insights did you gain from the article?
95
Activity 7.KWLHS Matrix
At this point, let the students answer the last three columns of the matrix.
What I Want What I Have How Did I

What I Know And So What
to Know Learned Learn
PY
Activity 8.Lesson Closure O
C
Let the students complete the following statement that would summarize their
“essential understanding” of social and political stratification.
Knowing the various sociological perspectives in examining stratification, I learned that
Learning the dynamics of social and political stratification, Irealized that
DEPE
Stratification is not a simple social construct, thus
It is important to learn social and political stratification

because
D
I will start inorder to help alleviate poverty in the country.
96
Transfer
The students will make a case study on the extent of poverty in their own
community or a community within their barangay. Possible topics include but are
not limited to:
1. Malnourishment
2. Informal settlers
3. Unemployment
4. Out-of-school children/ youth
5. Hunger
Information should come from the local government unit’s records, interviews with
local leaders and residents, and other vital sources.
Case Study Format

I. Brief introduction (information such as location and population of the
community, leadership and governance structures in the community,
availability of public services)
II. Presentation and analysis of the problem and its possible solutions
III. Conclusion
IV. Insights/Realizations
Students will be rated using the following rubric.
4 3 2 1
Identifies & Identifies and Identifies and Identifies and
Identification
understands all understands understands understands
of the Main
of the main most of the some of the few of the
Issues/
issues in the main issues in issues in the issues in case
Problems
case study the case study case study study
Superficial
Insightful and Thorough
analysis of Incomplete
Analysis of thorough analysis of
some of the analysis of the
the Issues analysis of all most of the
issues in the issues
the issues issues
case
Well Appropriate,
documented, well thought Superficial Little or no
reasoned and out comments and/or action
Comments suggested,
pedagogically about inappropriate
on effective and/or
appropriate solutions, or solutions to
solutions/stra inappropriate
comments on proposals for some of the
tegies solutions to all
solutions, or solutions, to issues in the
proposals for most of the case study of the issues in
solutions, to all issues in the the case study
97
4 3 2 1
issues in the case study
case study
Excellent
research into
Links to the issues with Good research Limited Limited
Course clearly and research and research and
Readings and documented documented documented documented
Additional links to class links to the links to any links to any
Research (and/or material read readings readings
outside)
readings
http://www.winona.edu/air/resourcelinks/group%20case%20study.doc
References
1. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. “Artistic Taste and Cultural Capital.” In Culture and Society:
Contemporary Debates. Jeffrey Alexander and Steven Seidman (eds.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.205–215.
2. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
3. Macionis, John. 2012. Sociology, 14th edition. Boston: Pearson.
4. Putnam, Robert. 1993.“The Prosperous Community: Social Capital and Public Life.”The
American Prospect 13. 35-42
98
CHAPTER 6
MAKING SOCIETY BETTER
I. INTRODUCTION
The final chapter focuses on cultural, social, and political change, or the
transformations of cultural, social and political institutions over time. There are many
causes of social change—when something is discovered, created, and diffused, during
times of conflict caused by inequalities and differences in ideas, when characteristics
of population alter, and when modernization is experienced by society.
The first set of readings offered in this chapter present these various reasons why
change occurs. George Ritzer’s notion of the McDonaldization of society, which
emphasizes predictability, efficiency, calculability, and substitution of human labor by
machines, epitomizes some of these changes. Randolf David examines education,
market, mass media, overseas work, law, and culture as some of the crucial sites and
signs of modernity in Philippine society. The next three readings then address two
major challenges to human adaptation and social change: global warming and climate
change, and transnational migration and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Garrett
Hardin explains how the “tragedy of the commons,” which relates to ecological
problems, results from individuals’ maximization of self-interests. F. Landa Jocano
explains cultural differences and culture shock experienced by Filipino domestic
helpers abroad. Rhacel Parreñas further provides details on the consequences of the
feminization of international labor migration by highlighting how Filipina labor
migration results to the formation of the transnational household and family.
How can we respond to these changes? Two readings explore the politics outside and
beyond the institutions of the political system of the nation-state. Charles Tilly and
Sidney Tarrow discuss the idea of “contentious politics” that brings together power,
shared interests, and government policy. They present various ways of understanding
what social movement is, how it starts, and how it is sustained. In the final reading,
W. Lance Bennett presents the paradox of “large-scale individualized collective
action” enabled by social media that challenges group-based political participation.
Focus Question:
1. Why do societies change?
2. How does society cope with change?
3. How can we respond to these changes?
99
II. CONTENT
Cultural, Social and Political Change

A. Sources of social, cultural, and political change
1. Innovation
2. Diffusion
3. Acculturation and assimilation
4. Social contradictions and tensions (e.g., interethnic conflicts, class
struggle, armed conflict, terrorism, protests, gender issues)
B. New challenges to human adaptation and social change

1. Global warming and climate change
2. Transnational migration and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs)
C. Responding to social, political, and cultural change

1. Inclusive citizenship and participatory governance
2. New forms of media and social networking
3. Social movements
III. STANDARDS
Content Standards
This chapter interrogates agents/ institutions, processes, and outcomes of cultural,
political, and social change.
Performance Standards
At the end of the chapter, the learner is expected to:
1. Evaluate factors causing social, political, and cultural change.
2. Advocate how human societies should adapt to such changes.
IV. LEARNING COMPETENCIES
At the end of the chapter, the learner is expected to:

1. Identify new challenges faced by human populations in contemporary
societies.
2. Describe how human societies adapt to new challenges in the physical, social,
and cultural environment.
3. Develop a plan of action for community-based response to change.
100
V. LESSON
Explore
Activity1. My Amazing Life
This activity will allow the students to realize that change starts within them. Ask the
students to fill out the organizer below with information about them and the big
changes in their lives.
COP
Y EPED
101
Process Questions:
1. What is the most significant event in your life? Why is this most important to
you?
2. How do you relate to this quotation “Nothing is permanent in this world
except change?" Give concrete examples.
3. Why do some people oppose or resist change?
Activity 2. Decode And Link It!

Let your student unlock the important words place on the left part of the table
below. Use the legend in unlocking the terms. After unlocking the words let your
students answer the first column (L – list everything you know)
Legend:
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
EDS T U V W X Y Z
E
D
102
Inquire about Now we are
What do
everything youList
whatLyou want to know going
I to take notes you
Nknow now? K
know
D
EPE
103
Firm-Up
What is Social Change?

Social change is the “transformation of culture and social institutions over time”
(Macionis 2012: 565).
Characteristics of social change (ibid.)
The process of social change has four major characteristics:

1. Social change happens all the time.Everything in our social world are subject
to change, although some societies change faster than others. As Macionis
points out, hunting and gathering societies change quite slowly, whereas
members of today’s high-income societies experience significant change
within a single lifetime. Some elements of culture alsochange faster than
others. Macionis thus cites William Ogburn’s theory of cultural lag, which
states that material culture (things) usually changes faster than nonmaterial
culture (ideas and attitudes). For instance, advances in genetic technology
have developed more rapidly than ethical standards on the use of the
technology.
2. Social change is sometimes intentional but is often unplanned. Today’s high-

income societies generate many kinds of change. Yet, it would be impossible
to envision all the consequences of the changes that are set in motion. For
example, telephones (invented in 1876) have taken on different forms and
uses over time.
3. Social change is controversial. Social change brings both good and bad
consequences, and thus could be welcomed by some and opposed by others.
Karl Marx and Max Weber have chronicled the transformations brought about
by the Industrial Revolution. The capitalists welcomed the Industrial
Revolution because new technology meant increased productivity and profits.
However, workers opposed it as they suffered alienation and the
dehumanization brought about by newer techniques and social relations of
production.
4. Some changes matter more than others.Some changes such as fashion fads
only have passing significance, while others such as major medical
discoveries and inventions may change the world.
104
Causes of social change
Social change has many causes.

A. Culture and change
There are three important sources of cultural change (Macionis 2012: 565–
566). First is invention, or the creation of something new by usually by
putting things together. Inventions can range from the seemingly complex
technological objects such as the spacecraft or even the lightbulb to the
seemingly simple such as kitchen gadgets (like can openers).
Second is discovery, or finding something that has existed but previously not
known. Chapter 2 provides various examples of the discovery of material and
fossil remains of prehistoric societies that changed our understanding of
biophysical and cultural evolution.
Third is diffusion, or the spread of cultural attributes from one culture to

another through contact between different cultural groups. Change happens as
products, people, and information spread from one society to
another.An example of cultural change is the wide variety of cuisine from
other lands that is made available to us. Fast-food courts and restaurants in
major Philippine cities offer food from around the country and the world that
is usually not part of a person’s everyday meal. Filipino overseas workers
have also been known to introduce balut and other Filipino foods to their
host societies. Another example is the evolving ideals of beauty as people
come in greater contactwith others.
B. Conflict and change

Inequality and conflict in a society also produce change. Karl Marx foresaw
that “social conflict arising from inequality (involving not just class but also
race and gender) would force changes in every society to improve the lives of
working people” (Macionis 2012: 566). In the Philippines, the rising
inequalities and human rights violations during the Martial Law period caused
mass uprisings that culminated in the 1986 People Power Revolt. The
Philippines was considered to be the first in the world to have challenged
authoritarian rule through a non-violent process.
C. Ideas and change

Weber, like Marx, also saw that conflict could bring about change. However,
he traced the roots of most social change to ideas (Macionis 2012: 566). For
example, charismatic people such as Mahatma Gandhi or Jose Rizal had
political ideas that change society.
105
D. Demographic change
Population patterns such as population growth, shifts in the composition of a
population, or migration also play a part in social change (Macionis 2012:
566). An increasing population may encourage the development of new
products and services, but it can also have ecological and social implications
such the conversion of more agricultural land to residential subdivisions. In
other societies, lower fertility rates (women are having fewer children), an
aging population, and the influx of migrants from other societies are changing
many aspects of social life.
Modernity
A central concept in the study of social change is modernity. Modernity refers to
social patterns resulting from industrialization. These social patterns were set in
motion by the Industrial Revolution, which began in Western Europe in the 1750s
(Macionis 2012: 566). Related to the discussion of modernity is modernization, or
the process of social change begun by industrialization (Ibid).
For Emile Durkheim, modernization is defined by an increasing division of labor. The

division of labor refers to the degree to which tasks or responsibilities are specialized.
Durkheim defines a society according to type of solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is
based on shared activities and beliefs while organic solidarity is characterized
by specialization makes people interdependent. As societies become industrialized,
mechanical solidarity is gradually replaced by organic solidarity. (Macionis 2012:
569).
For Weber, modernity meant replacing a traditional worldview with a rational way of
thinking characterized by goal-oriented calculation and efficiency. He focused on the
dehumanizing effects of modern rational organization, especially the bureaucracy
which is the ultimate form of rationalization (Macionis 2012: 569–570).
Marx saw modernity as the triumph of capitalism over feudalism. Capitalism

creates social conflict, which Marx claimed would bring about revolutionary change
leading to an egalitarian socialist society (Macionis 2012: 569–570)
George Ritzer introduces the concept of McDonaldization of society while Randolf

David explores the Philippine experience of modernity.
New challenges to human adaptation and social change

1. Global warming and climate change: Discuss Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the
commons.
2. Transnational migration and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs): Discuss F.
Landa Jocano’s “Culture Shock” and Rhacel Parreñas’s, “Mothering from a
Distance”.
106
Responding to social, political, and cultural change
1. Inclusive citizenship and participatory governance
2. New forms of media and social networking
3. Social movements (e.g., environmentalism, feminism, religious
fundamentalism)
Activity 3:Pic-Graphic Organizer

This activity will allow students to think of the different characteristics and causes of
social change. Instruct them to use the clue pictures as guide to complete the
organizer.
SOCIAL CHANGE
The transformation of culture and social

institution over time
Characteristics Causes
EPE
D
107
Process Questions:
1. Which among the characteristics of social change can be seen mostly in our
society?
2. Which among the causes of social change is prevalent in the Philippine
setting?
3. In your own perception, give one characteristic and cause of social change.
Explain and provide examples.
Activity 4:Chain of Changes

This activity will allow students to identify things around them that undergo change
or modernity. Let them specify in the lines below the objects, things, and events that
undergo change. Use the chain to describe the process of change that took place.
1.
2.
3.
Process Questions
1. Why does change happen?
2. What will happen to our society if it will not undergo modernity?
3. What are the positive and negative effects of our changing society?
108
Activity 5: Train of Implications: Dimensions of Modernization
This activity will serve as basis for students understanding of the important concepts
of modernization. Let your students analyze the implications of the modernization on
culture, society, and politics. Answers will be written below the balloons that specify
the dimensions of modernization according to Peter Berger (1977).
Orientation toward the future and a growing awareness

of time
The expansion of personal Increasing
The decline of social diversity
choice
small, traditional communities
Process Questions:
COP
Y
1. How does the community experience the decline of tradition?
2. How do you experience the expansion of choices?
3. What are signs of increasing social diversity?
4. What are your plans for the future? Do you consider yourself modern based
on these plans?
Deepen
There are several articles in the Reader that are useful to deepen the initial concepts
presented.
Material: Ritzer, George.(1993). “Chapter 1. The McDonaldization of Society.”The

McDonaldization of Society. California: Pine Forge Press. pp. 1–17
Guide questions:
1. What are the features of an increasingly rational society, one that is driven by
means-end calculation?
2. What are the dangers of an increasingly rational world, and how can we cope
with it?
109
Ritzer argues that the rationalization of modern society’s bureaucracy and the
economy have been employed by the fast-food restaurant (such as McDonald’s).
These are also being applied in increasingly numerous and diverse social settings and
products such as newspapers, hospitals, and schools, among others. These principles
are: efficiency, quantifiability and calculability, predictability, replacement of human
technology with nonhuman technology, and control. Ritzer makes use of sociologist
Max Weber’s work on the rationalization of modern society that emphasizes formal
rationality (or means-ends calculation). Just as Weber pointed out the irrationality of
rationality in the bureaucracy and the economy, Ritzerexhorts us to extract the best of
what the McDonaldized world has to offer without succumbing to its dangers and
excesses. He suggests ways to cope with the increasing irrationality of rationality: by
developing personal ties wherever we may be.
Activity6: Race to Change

This activity will identify the new challenges faced by human populations in modern
society. The students will enumerate the changes and how they adapt to new
challenges that are generally faced by the human population as enumerated below.
Changes:
Food and industry

Education Home and ShoppingEmployment and
family entertainment
The new challenges faced by human

population
EE
Adaptation:
110
Process Questions
1. How did modernity started in the food business?
2. Why do some people can easily adapt to change?
3. Which among these changesdo people find difficult to adapt?
4. How can you be rational in everything you do?
Material: David, Randolf. 2002. “Modernity and the Filipino,”Nation, Self, and
Citizenship: An Invitation to Philippine Sociology. Quezon City: University of
the Philippines Press. pp. 347–357
Guide Question:
What are the signs of modernity the Philippines?
A central concept in the study of social change, modernity refers to social patterns
resulting from industrialization. For David, to be modern—to feel at home in a
rapidly changing world—immediately brings to mind the overseas Filipino worker.
However, he also points out that we do not need to go away to experience modernity.
David examines education, market, mass media, overseas work, law and culture, and
politics as some of the crucial sites and signs of modernity in Philippine society. For
example, as the most important workshop of modernity, the school rescues children
from the vicious cycle of poverty. In particular, new entrepreneurs of learning
produced skilled technicians for the digital age, and schools such as AMA ad STI
have democratized access to tertiary education. In another example, David cites the
presence of malls and Filipino fast food chains adopting the American way but
improving on what has been adopted as a sign that Filipinos are a modern people. He
concludes that to be modern is to leap into a world that is changing, creating new
meanings while remaining firmly rooted to humanity and to one own’s society and
culture.
Activity 7: Shapes of Modernization

This activity will measure on different generations experience and define modernity
in the Philippines. Students will ask their parents or grandparents to share their
experiences of the following signs of modernity (as indicated in the shapes). On a
separate sheet, students will also fill up the shapes based on their experiences.
Then, they will assess the similarities and differences.
111
Value of law and culture:
Role of education in
modernizing our society:
Consumers view of the Character traits of an OFW in adapting in his /her new
market: environment:
Signs of Modernity
in the Society
Mass media as a means of communication:
Process Questions:
1. How is modernity experienced by different generations?
2. What are the similarities and differences? What could be the reason for such
variation?
Material: Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.”Science. 162: 1243–
1248
Guide Questions:
1. What are examples of common own resources?
2. What brings about the tragedy of the commons?
3. What are the ways of avoiding mismanagement and abuse of the commons?
Hardin points out that there are problems that do not have a technical solution. A
technical solution is defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of
the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human
values or ideas of morality. No technical solution problems include the management
of common-pool resources. Using the case of a common pasture, Hardin argues that
resources held in common are doomed to destruction because people instinctively
112
pursue their own best interests. The pursuit of self-interest brings about the tragedy of
the commons. People view it as their right to use the parks, to throw their wastes, and
to have as many children as they see fit, without consideration for other people. To
pursue sustainability, society must discourage selfish acts; thus, there is a need to
foster responsibility. The social arrangements that produce responsibility are
arrangements that create coercion, the most preferred of which is mutual coercion.
Mutually agreed upon coercion practices include payment of user’s fees and taxes.
For Hardin, however, an increase in human population necessitates the abandonment
of the commons. The only way to preserve and nurture other freedoms is by
relinquishing the freedom to breed, and by doing so, put an end to the tragedy of the
commons.
Activity 8: Table Completion

This will measure the ability of our students to think rationally by answering the table
below.The students will fill out the needed information in the chart below.
Tragedy of
Problems Solutions Programs Effect
Commons
1. Pollution
2. Fertility
Decisions
3. Use of Public
Spaces
Process Questions:
1. Based on the readings, who are the commons?
2. How you will describe the commons based on the author’s perspective?
3. Do you believe that the problems listed above have no technical solution?
Explain your answer.
Material: F. LandaJocano. 1994. “Culture Shock: The Case of Filipina Domestic

Helpers in Singapore and Hong Kong”. Solidarity.No. 143–144. pp. 61–66
Guide Questions:
1. How do differences in cultures lead to difficulties and problems for many Filipino
migrant workers?
2. How can these difficulties and problems be addressed?
113
Reports of incidents of “mental disorders,”“emotional stress,”“suicides,” and many
other forms of difficulties suffered by Filipino domestics in faraway places often
make headline news. In this analysis of the experiences of domestic helpers in
Singapore and Hong Kong, Jocano offers another explanation for these difficulties:
culture shock. Many Filipinas working as domestic helpers in Singapore and Hong
Kong experience culture shock, or a form of anxiety that results from an inability to
predict the behavior of others or act appropriately in a cross-cultural situation. This
anxiety arises because of differences in cultural ways of thinking, believing, feeling,
and acting that characterize the orientations of people in different cultures. Jocano
points out that the Philippines has had a history of international labor migration, as its
people have long searched for greener pastures, but in the 1980s and the decades that
followed, the labor migration pattern became associated with women workers, which
include women domestic helpers. Jocano identifies six areas where culture“shock” is
most prominent: language, food, loneliness, jealousy, sexual abuse, and cultural
practices. In conclusion, Jocano highlights that although the Philippines, Hong Kong,
and Singapore are the same Asiatic cultures, the nuances of each country’s cultural
orientation vary. There is, therefore, a need for greater cross-cultural understanding
OP
among Filipinos.
Activity 9: Character Reference

This activity intends to summarize the circumstances experienced by Filipino migrant
workers. Using the article by LandaJocano, provide information that corresponds to
the situation of OFWs.
ED
The reason for going abroad: The problems encountered by OFWs:
Places where domestic helpers are seen:
The Filipino
Domestic Helper
DEP
The job of the Filipino
migrant:
The effects of being an OFW:
114
Process Question:
1. What is culture shock?
2. Why do OFW’s suffer from culture shock?
3. Why is the Filipino woman often the victim of culture shock?
4. What are the government programs that deal with problems of Filipino
domestic helpers?
Material: Parreñas, Rhacel S. (2001). “Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender

and Intergenerational Relations in Filipino Transnational Families.”Feminist
Studies, 27, pp. 361–390
Guide Questions
1. What are transnational families?
2. What are the emotional consequences of geographical distance in female-
headed transnational families? How do mothers and children cope with them?
3. How can society help female-headed transnational families manage the
consequences of mothering from a distance?
As one of the largest sources of independent female labor migrants in the world, the
Philippines has seen a growing number of female-headed transnational families.
These families are households with core members living in at least two nation-states
and in which the mother works in another country while some or all of her
dependents reside in the Philippines. Accompanying this phenomenon, therefore, is
the increasing number of Filipino-women migrants who are mothering their children
from a distance. Parreñas identifies the emotional strains of transnational mothering
that include feelings of anxiety, helplessness, loss, guilt, and the burden of loneliness.
Mothers negotiate these emotional strains in three ways: the commodification of love,
the repression of emotional strains, and the rationalization of distance through
communication to ease distance. Children also bear the emotional costs of
geographical distance with feelings of loneliness, insecurity, and vulnerability, as
they crave greater intimacy with their migrant parents. These sufferings resultin g
at least three central conflicts plaguing intergenerational relationships between
migrant mothers and the children whom they have left behind in the
Philippines. First, children disagree with their mothers that commodities are
sufficient markers of love. Second, they do not believe that their mothers recognize
the sacrifices that children have made toward the successful maintenance of the
family. Third and last, although they appreciate the efforts of migrant mothers to show
affection and care, they still question the extent of their efforts. In conclusion, the
article points out that these feelings of pain in transnational families are intensified
by the failure in a great number of families to meet the gender-based expectations of
children for mothers (and not fathers) to nurture them, and also the self-imposed
expectations of mothers
115
to follow culturally and ideologically inscribed duties in the family.Traditional
attitudes in the family identify the man as the provider and the woman as the nurturer.
The persistence of these role expectations poses an additional burden on migrant
mothers. Not only are they expected to work abroad as wage earners but they must
also remain parents, even from such distance. To help transnational families cope, the
general public should support the “reconstitution of mothering” led by numerous
female migrants toward the acceptance of multiple forms of family life.
Activity 10: Five Thinking Hats

This activity will provide an opportunity for students to think critically by providing
answers in the chart below.
What are transnational families?
Why are they called transnational families?
COP
How does a transnational family cope with the pain of separation and
mothering from a distance?
What are the advantages of transnational families?
What are the fears of transnational families?
EPE
Material: Tilly, Charles and Sidney Tarrow, S. 2015. “Making Claims in Contentious
Politics,”New York: Oxford University Press.pp. 3–22
D
Guide Questions
1. What is contentious politics?
2. What are examples of its manifestations?
3. What factors affect contentious politics?
116
Tilly and Tarrow discuss the concept of ‘contentious politics’ as the nexus among
contention, collective action, and politics - as familiar features of social life.It
involves the “interactions in which actors make claims bearing on other actors’
interests, leading to coordinated efforts on behalf of shared interests or programs, in
which governments are involved as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties” (p.
7). In other words, contentious politics brings together power, shared interests and
government policy. At the heart of contentious politics is the notion of collective
claim-making, by political actors with unique political identities and histories,
through varying performance strategies ranging from presentation of petition to street
demonstrations, the use of social media of other emerging forms such as the
“Occupy” movement. Contentious politics is affected by the kind of political
opportunity structures available brought about by either periods of rapid or
incremental political change.
Activity 11: Table Completion

This activity will measure students’ capability to analyze situations where they can
relate to the topics below.Let the student identify situations / examples of contention,
collective action, and politics. Where do these occur?
Examples/ Situations Place of Occurrence

Contention
Collective Action
Politics
Contentious Politics
Process Question:
1. What are the similarities and differences between contention, collective
action, and politics?
2. How do contentious politics affect our lives?
Material: Tilly, Charles and Sidney Tarrow, S. 2015.“Social Movements,”New York:

Oxford University Press.145–167
Guide Questions
1. What is social movement?
2. What are the important elements of social movements?
3. What are the possible paths a social movement will most likely to follow after
the campaigns have subsided?
117
Social movement is “a sustained campaign of claim making, using repeated
performances that advertise the claim, based on organizations, networks, traditions
and solidarities that sustain these activities” (pp. 11). There are two distinct but
interrelated aspects of social movement—a social movement base, which tells us
when social movement is possible, and a social movement campaign, which signifies
that claimmaking is in motion. Highly successful movements at times transform into
a party, as in the case of Poland’s Solidarity, a base of industrial workers that
successful challenged the authoritarian regime and ultimately became political party
leaders. Besides contentious activities, social movements also engage in consensus
mobilization within and outside institutions. Social movement impacts on various
aspects of political and social life—from policy changes to effects brought about in
the lives of activists.Beyond campaigns, however, social movements have been
observed to follow four different trajectories—institutionalization, commercialization,
involution, and radicalization.
Activity 12. The Making of a Social Movement
This activity will measure the capability of the students to trace and analyze how
social movements develop and evolve.
Task: In small groups, identify important events that led to the development of a
social movement of their choice.
Mechanics:
1. Based on what students have learned in the reading, ask them to research on
one social movement either in the Philippines or any other country.
2. Then, identify the events that shaped the movement.
3. Which ones can be considered base, and which ones can be considered
campaigns? Write them down on the table below.
Social Movement Base Social Movement Campaign
118
Process Questions:
1. Who is the movement attempting to change?
2. How much change is being advocated?
3. What factors have led to the inception of the movement?
4. How was the movement sustained?
5. What happened to the movement (was it institutionalized? commercialized?
involuted? radicalized?)?
6. What benefit does knowledge about social movement offer to the Filipino
youth today?
Material: Bennett, W. Lance. 2012. “The Personalization of Politics: Political

Identity, Social Media and Changing Patterns of Participation,”The Annals of
the American Academy, 644, pp. 20–39
Guide Questions
1. What is personalization?
2. How is personalization related to individualized collective action?
3. How do social media and other forms of communication alter political
participation among the younger generation?
Bennett proposes and investigates how large-scale individualized collective action

challenges the traditional group-based political participation. He begins the discussion
with the rise of personalization brought about by the proliferation of social media and
personalized communication technologies. The global neoliberal economic regime
also introduced privatization and market forces into one’s daily personal life that
highlighted personal freedom and growth.These developments shifted the nature of
political participation away from conventional social movements and toward
individualized collective action. Several manifestations of such personalized
collective actions that have arisen from both left- and right-wing movements are
mentioned.Shifts in citizenship orientations among the younger generation have also
been observed, as well as rise of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) politics. Despite criticisms for
being diverse and loosely organized, it seems that personalized politics have been
gaining successful and recognition in the contemporary discussions on political
participation.
119
Activity 13: Relate It.
This will measure the capacity of the students to relate two topics. Let the students
show the relationship between two concepts by giving information that is related to
each other.
PERSONALIZATION INDIVIDUALIZED COLLECTIVE

ACTION
Process Questions:
1. How is personalization related to individualized collective action?
2. How does collective action challenge traditional notions of social movement?
Activity 14: Human Tableau

This will measure the capability of students in thinking creatively by making a human
tableau. Divide students into groups. Assign them to create different scenarios on how
social media and other forms of communication alter political participation among
younger generation.
Criteria Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4

Thinking; Few elements Some Elements of the Elements of
use of planning of the tableau elements of tableau are the tableau are
skills are the tableau purposefully purposefully,
purposefully are organized precisely
organized purposefully organized
organized
Communication Lacks Somewhat Modifies body Expertly
precision in precise when position to suit modifies body
modifying modifying audience and position to
body position body position purpose of suit audience
to suit to suit tableau with and purpose
audience and audience and precision of tableau
purpose of purpose of
tableau tableau
120
Criteria Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
Communication, Effectively Effectively Effectively uses Effectively
facial uses one uses two or four or five uses all six
expression convention of three conventions of conventions
contribute to tableau conventions tableau of tableau
focal point of tableau
Application; Expresses the Expresses the Clearly

making character’s character’s expresses the
connections thought, thought, character’s
within and emotion, or emotion, or thought,emotion,
between action with action with or action
contexts little or no some clarity
clarity
Source : http://code.on.ca/resource/tableau-rubric
121
Inquire about Now we are
What do
everything you knowList L what you want to know I going to take notes N you know now? K
Activity 15: Link It.
Let your student answer the K part of the activity

122
Transfer
Advocacy Campaign
You are a member of a creative group that was tasked by a government agency to
create an advocacy campaign in support of its programs towards sustainable
development. There are 17 goals outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development adopted by world leaders during a United Nations summit in September
2015. These goals are indicated in the picture below.
COP
Y
EPE
Source:http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
Your task is to conceptualize and create an advocacy campaign using new forms of
D
media and communication technologies. Your goal is to convey to the public the
cultural, social, and political challenges attributed to your chosen goal and how
the public can effectively adapt to these changes. Agency executives will determine
the effectiveness of your campaign.
123
Standards
Category 4 3 2 1 0
Use of class Used time Used time Used some Did not use Little to no
time well during well during of the time class time to work
each class each class well during focus on the completed
period. period. each class project OR during class.
Focused on Usually period. There often
getting the focused on was some distracted
project done. getting the focuson others.
Never project done getting the
distracted and never project done
others. distracted but
others. occasionally
distracted
others.
Graphics — All graphics Most Some Graphics do No graphics
relevance are related to graphics are graphics not relate to used.
the topic and related to the relate to the the topic.
make the ad topic and topic.
easier to make the ad
understand. easier to
understand.
Required The ad The ad The ad The ad No ad turned
elements includes a includes a includes a contains no in.
propaganda propaganda figurative propaganda
technique technique but language technique
and at least 1 no figurative device but no and no
figurative language propaganda figurative
language device. technique. language
device. device.
Content The ad The ad is The ad is The ad No ad turned
accuracy accurately missing 1 missing 2 or doesn’t in.
depicts the element that more depict the
propaganda accurately elements that propaganda
technique depicts the accurately technique
assigned. propaganda depicts the assigned.
technique propaganda
assigned. technique
assigned.
Source : http://www.slideshare.net/CandaceR/propaganda-11435623
124
Activity 16: Lesson Summary Closure
This activity will allow the students to reflect on what they have learned from the
lesson. Let the student complete the unfinished sentences to summarize the chapter.
The thing that strikes me the most about social change is

.
An all-encompassing statement that summarizes what social movement is
Three most important concepts from this chapter are:
COP
1.
2.
3.
I can become an active member of Philippine society by

.
The form of political participation I am most comfortable doing is

because
Y EPED
.
References
1. Berger, Peter (1977). Facing up to Modernity: Excursions in Society, Politics, and Religion.
New York: Basic Books.
2. Macionis, John (2012). Sociology, 14th Edition. Boston: Pearson.
Sources of Graphics:
1. Link Activity http://www.middleweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Link-strategy-red.png
2. My Amazing Life https://www.rainbowresource.com/proddtl.php?id=021631&subject
=English%2FWriting/7&category=CREATIVE+WRITING/1633
125
Additional Readings
A Ideology, Place, and People Without Culture 129

Renato Rosaldo
B What is Anthropology? 140
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
C The First Farmers 152
D The First Cities and States 169
E Museums of Anthropology or Museums as Anthropology 187
Susan M. Pearce
F A Time to Build, A Time to Tear Down: Religion, Society and State 200
in Contemporary Philippines
Jose M. Cruz, S.J.
G Folk Catholicism in the Philippines 205
Frank Lynch
H Modernity and the Filipino 214
Randolf S. David
I The Case of Filipina Domestic Helpers in Singapore and Hong Kong 223
F. Landa Jocano
J Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender and Inter- 231
Generational Relations in Filipino Transnational Families
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
K The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media, and 253
Changing Patterns of Participation
W. Lance Bennett
L Making Claims in Contentious Politics 269
Charles Tilly & Sidney Tarrow
127
A Ideology, Place, and People without Culture
RENATO ROSALDO
When I was a graduate student contemplating fieldwork in the Philippines, one of my

professors warned me that Filipinos have “no culture.” Meaning to be helpful, he suggested
fieldwork in Madagascar instead. In the end, I ignored his advice.
When I arrived in Manila, his prophecy appeared to be confirmed by the standard

Filipino half-joke that they were “people without culture.” Unlike Indonesia, they explained,
the Philippines never had Hindu-Buddhist temples and other signs of ancestral high culture.
What, they added with a twinkle, could one expect from people who had spent three hundred
years in a monastery (Spanish colonial rule) and a half century in Hollywood (American
colonial rule)?
When I reached the Ilongots in the hills of northern Luzon, Philippines, they
appeared to be “people without culture”; they lacked the ethnographic staples of the day:
lineages, villages, men’s houses, elaborate rituals, not to mention matrilateral cross-cousin
marriage. Even at the beginning of our second period of field research, Michelle Rosaldo
wrote in her field journal that we both felt “sad and nervous because there’s no hint that we’ll
find more ‘culture’ than last time and every reason to think that there’ll be less” (M. Rosaldo
1974). The following passage from her field journal comments on the impossibility of
arriving at a cultural understanding of the drastic cultural changes brought by settlers and
missionaries:
Some good things are sure to come out of this… but the overwhelming fact that
things are changing so quickly, settlers impinging, choices being made between
possible lowland allies, padi fields being built which don’t work, people rejecting
their past for a polyanna-ish idea of religion—all that is something I have
absolutely no sense of how to understand. (It has to be interesting but when I think
about it, all I’ve got are boring, depressing thoughts.) [M. Rosaldo 1974]
Evidently, the concept of culture could barely describe, let alone analyze, flux,
improvisation, and heterogeneity. Weren’t these changes simply robbing Ilongots of their
culture? What was so cultural anyway about an apparently transparent brutal process of
landgrabbing and “incorporation” into the nation-state?
Cultural Visibility and Invisibility
Arguably, anthropologists hold contradictory notions of culture. The discipline’s

official view holds that all human conduct is culturally mediated. In other words, people act
in relation, not to brute reality, but to culture-specific modes of perceiving and organizing the
world. Thus, in principle, the processes Ilongots were undergoing should be as amenable to
cultural description as a kinship system or an initiation ritual. No domain of culture is more or
less culturally mediated than any other. Indeed, the quantitative notion of “more” or “less”
culture appears to be a throwback to the days when “high culture” was (and, in certain sectors
of the academy, still is) measured in terms of opera houses, museums, and literary salons.
129
If the official view holds that all cultures are equal, an informal filing system, more
often found in corridor talk than in published writings, classifies cultures in quantitative
terms, from a lot to a little, from thick to thin, and from elaborate to simple. Such variables as
ritual elaboration, cosmological reticulation, kinship intricacy, and institutional complexity
define greater and lesser “degrees” of culture.
Culture in this view is defined by difference. Difference both makes culture visible to
observers and makes it relatively easy to separate nature from nurture. Cultural similarities
could be biologically based, but differences require cultural explanation. Thus fieldworkers
go half-way around the world to report on having found cultural worlds that are closed,
coherent, and different from ours. In their more grouchy moods, ethnographers grumble that
they did not risk dysentery and malaria only to discover that Tahiti and Des Moines are, in
certain respects, quite alike. To pursue a culture is to seek out its differences, and then to
show how it makes sense, as they say, in its own terms.
What follows pursues the informal view and maps zones of cultural visibility and
invisibility onto the spatial organization within and between nations, particularly Mexico, the
Philippines, and the United States. In “our” own eyes, “we” appear to be “people without
culture.” By courtesy, “we” extend this postcultural status to people who resemble “us.” What
are the consequences of making “our” cultural selves invisible? What cultural politics erase
the “self” only to highlight the “other”? What is the ideological fallout from this play of
cultural visibility and invisibility?
The preceding and what follows deliberately use caricature to bring once prevalent
disciplinary norms into high relief. Although these norms have become particularly visible
because they are losing their grip, they continue to exercise a certain hold and therefore
require critical scrutiny. By exploring an absence—zones of cultural invisibility-I hope to
make present the need to continue revising the discipline’s concept of culture.
Zones of Cultural Visibility and Invisibility
Let me begin with a truism: different places are different. Imagine taking this truism a
giant step further and devising a Handbook for Young Anthropologists that advises: go to
India for hierarchy, New Guinea for pollution, Oceania for adoption, Africa for unilineal
descent, and so on across the globe. Conversely, those interested in the unilineal descent
group should steer clear of the Philippines where they’ll only be afflicted by the cognatic
problem.
This imaginary handbook could even advise members of theoretical schools about
their preferred places. During my graduate school days in the 1960s, for example, we all
knew that smart structural anthropologists could best find what they were looking for either
in eastern Indonesia or among Brazil’s Ge-speaking peoples whose dual organizations were
strikingly visible in aerial photographs of their villages. Ethnoscientists, on the other hand,
prospered most in the Philippines or in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, where people
seemed to care about nothing so much as naming plants.
The fact that different places are different does not derive simply from stereotypes
about what’s typical of India, New Guinea, or anywhere else. Nor are these differences
merely an artifact of the territorial claims of different schools of metropolitan theory. There
130
really is something—call it a sizable grain of truth—to informal professional perceptions. The
question is one of limits: where do these typifications yield insight? How do they exclude
certain problems from ethnographic study? To what extent can they be understood as
ideology?
The problem just raised brings to mind the story told by a noted Spanish philologist
about his German colleague who rejected most of his Galician linguistic informants because
they did not speak the “pure” dialect of Gallego-Portugues. Rather like tourists who seek out
the exotic and call it typically Galician, the philologist found that only a tiny minority of the
region’s inhabitants spoke their “true” dialect. In his view, the speech of most Galicians had
been linguistically “corrupted” by Castilian, leaving them without an authentic language and
culture.
What concerns me in the following are precisely the cultural phenomena that escape
analysis because they fail to conform with standard expectations about the typical and the
authentic. Culture areas contain zones, indeed are laced with pockets and eruptions, where
anthropological and other typifications fail. Ambitious young anthropologists would be well
advised to avoid such zones, pockets, and eruptions because they are inhabited by “people
without culture.” Perhaps because my dissertation no longer is on the line, I will suggest in
what follows that zones of cultural invisibility now pose compelling, as yet unresolved, issues
for cultural analysis.
The Postcultural Top and the Precultural Bottom
Within particular nations, those who most nearly resemble “ourselves” appear to be
“people without culture.” In Mexico, Indians have culture and “Ladinos” do not. In the
Philippines, hill tribes or cultural minorities have culture and lowlanders do not. Ladinos and
lowlanders are full citizens of the nation-state. They have jobs, and are regarded as rational,
not cultural. People in metropolitan centers classify them as civilized, in contrast with Indians
and cultural minorities.
To the ethnographic gaze, these civilized people appear too transparent for study;
they seem just like us: materialistic, greedy, and prejudiced. Because their worlds are so down
to earth and practical, our commonsense categories apparently suffice for making sense of
their lives.
This analysis can be complicated by further spatialization. In Mexico, Indians inhabit

what the Mexican anthropologist Aguirre Beltrán has called refuge regions. The people with
culture, in the anthropological sense, have either remained on or been forced onto marginal
lands. Their cultural distinctiveness derives from the inherited remnants of indigenous
civilizations. Their quaint customs signal isolation, insulation, and subordination within the
nation-state.
In the Philippine case, the “people without culture” occupy both ends of the social
hierarchy. Roughly speaking, Negrito hunter-gatherers are on the bottom and lowlanders are
on top. The difference between the two ends of the spectrum is that the Negritos are
precultural and the lowlanders are postcultural.
131
The Philippine case differs from the Mexican one above all in its overall explicitness.
Schemas crystalized during the American colonial era and still current in Philippine popular
culture order the nation’s peoples along a scale arranged from lesser to greater: Negritos,
hunter-horticulturalists, dry rice cultivators, wet rice cultivators, and lowlanders (see R.
Rosaldo 1978, 1982). In spatial terms, Negritos occupy the most marginal lands; dry rice and
wet rice cultivators tend to be upland, upriver, or in the interior; lowlanders, as their name
suggests, reside in the valleys. In this pseudo-evolutionary ladder, people begin without
culture, and grow increasingly cultured until they reach that postcultural point where they
become transparent to “us.”
Degrees of mobility differentiate people “with” and “without” culture. “People with
culture” appear sedentary and rooted in their particular niches. Negritos, on the other hand,
often are idealized as nomadic, rootless, and absolutely mobile. Although they are linked to
national educational and political institutions, lowlanders comprise a (formally) mobile labor
force that makes rational choices to go where the jobs are.
Not unlike the !Kung, Negritos are often represented as if they were raw primal
humanity, the famous missing link; they supposedly can tell us—if only we listen with care—
about the essence of human nature. In ethnographic terms, they appear ideally suited for
ecological studies, but of little interest to students of kinship and symbolism. They have not
achieved that peculiar hybrid status, at once ecological and symbolic, of the Australian
aborigines. Nor do they have the more visible forms of social organization and ritual activity
enjoyed by other groups of northern Luzon. As wet rice cultivators, Ifugao settlers, for
example, often boasted that they were culturally superior to the hunter-horticulturalist
Ilongots whose land they were taking. The Ifugaos measured their greater degree of culture,
not in opera houses, but in elaborate rituals, material culture, and terraced wet rice
agriculture.
Filipino low landers, on the other hand, more nearly resemble Americans in being
posthistorical and postcultural. They have been educated; they make decisions about wage
labor in accord with an economically rational calculus. Not unlike Mexican ladinos, lowland
Filipinos appear to have been assimilated into a system that “we” understand because it is
“our” own advanced capitalism. Evidently lowlanders are transparent to “us” because of their
colonial heritage. First they were evangelized under the Spaniards, and then they were
educated under the Americans. Like “us,” they have undergone an educational process that
has disciplined them and made them fit to live in a city, work in a factory, serve in a
penitentiary, or undergo confinement in an asylum.
Immigration as Cultural Stripping Away
If a social hierarchy’s top and bottom appear to be zones of “zero degree” culture, so
too is the zone of immigration, or the site where individuals move between two national
spaces. Ideally, that is, from the dominant society’s point of view, immigrants are stripped of
their former cultures, enabling them to become American citizens, transparent, just like you
and me, “people without culture.” In ethnographic terms, so-called acculturation is probably
better described as deculturation, or the production of postcultural citizens.
The myth of immigration as a cultural stripping away recently appeared, among other
places, in a New York Times story about so-called illegal aliens. Published shortly after
132
Congress passed the new immigration bill, the story begins by depicting remarkable diversity
among the undocumented:
Their stories are as diverse as America. Some entered this country swimming naked
through the Rio Grande, others with tickets aboard jet liners. They are laborers,
classical pianists, secretaries, dishwashers, restaurant owners, high school students.
[Reinhold 1986:1A]
The writer goes on, however, to celebrate the essential unity underlying this apparent
cultural diversity:
They come from almost every conceivable country—Mexico, El Salvador, Japan,

Vietnam, Korea, Haiti, Ethiopia, Iran, Poland, New Zealand. For all their cultural
differences, they have shared a semi-secret life in their chosen land, forming a kind
of shadow economy and culture in which any day could end in arrest and deportation.
[Reinhold 1986:1A]
In the writer’s view, the shared experience of living the “same” secret lives has been
the brew in the Great American Melting Pot. As a resocializing medium, it has produced
homogenization and created a new group of “people without culture.” Verbally, at least, the
undocumented have been assimilated into the main• stream.
Apparently, images of “illegal aliens” have been manufactured for the consumption
of North American readers who at once see themselves as culturally transparent and feel
threatened by differences of class and culture. Indeed, metropolitan portraits of Mexican
ladinos, Filipino Negritos, Filipino lowlanders, and the vast array of immigrants to the United
States strangely resemble the North Americans portrayed in Frances Fitzgerald’s Cities on a
Hill. Her book describes subcultures that have found ways to live out a number of versions of
the “American dream.” For all their differences, they share utopian fantasies of making new
beginnings and living in a world without precedents.
The retirement village of Sun City, for example, appears extraordinary, not because
its local melting pot has succeeded in amalgamating diversity, but rather because of its
residents’ past and present homogeneity:
Sun Citians are a remarkably homogeneous group; in particular, those who live in
Sun City proper occupy a far narrower band on the spectrum of American society
than economics would dictate… the men are by and large retired professionals…
Most of the women were housewives... Most Sun Citians are Protestants...
Politically, they are conservative and vote Republican. [Fitzgerald 1986:218]
Yet this uniformity remains largely invisible to Sun Citians. One Sun City couple, for
example, affably remarked on how its residents live in the present and appear to have erased
their pasts:
“No one gives a hang here what you did or where you came from,” Mrs. Smith
said. “It’s what you are now that matters.” Later, in a different context, her
husband said
133
much the same thing, adding that the colonels refused to be called “Colonel.”
[Fitzgerald 1986:219]
Phenotype aside, Sun Citians appear to themselves as 20th-century versions of

nomadic, rootless Philippine Negritos. In remarking on the absolute irrelevance of social
origins, however, the Smiths failed to notice the striking absence of blacks, Chicanos, Puerto
Ricans, and Native Americans in Sun City. For the social construction of distinctively North
American rootless utopias, some pasts evidently matter more than others.
Assimilation as a Model of Cross-Cultural Understanding
The model for cross-cultural understanding that produces immigration as a site of

cultural stripping away is the academic version of the melting pot: theories of acculturation
and assimilation. In this view, immigrants, or at any rate their children and grandchildren, are
absorbed into the national culture. Above all, the process involves the loss of one’s past-
autobiography, history, heritage, language, and all the rest of the so-called cultural baggage.
Where Jose Rizal and Gregorio Cortes once stood, there shall be George Washington and the
Texas Rangers. The theory of assimilation appears to have the inevitability of a law of history.
If it doesn’t catch up with you this generation, it will in the next.
In this view, social mobility and acculturation usually go hand-in-hand, for to

become middle-class in North America is purportedly to become part of the mainstream.
Indeed, this notion suggests that the Philippine social hierarchy with its degrees of culture
owes much to assimilation theory. Those most down and out, such as Philippine Negritos and
the urban North American underclasses, appear to lack culture. Social mobility from the
“bottom” brings people into zones where culture flourishes, such as Mexican refuge regions,
Philippine upland and upriver areas, and North American ethnic neighborhoods, barrios, and
ghettos. Social mobility closer to the “top,” however, reverses the process and begins a
cultural stripping away in which Mexican Indians and Filipino cultural minorities become
peasants and workers, and North American farmers and workers become members of the
urban middle class.
Professional anthropologists can probably dismiss the views just outlined as

somebody else’s ideology, a dated theory, a bit of popular culture, or mere journalism. We
would do well, however, to remind ourselves that assimilation and resocialization as models
of cross-cultural understanding implicitly inform much North American field research. How
often does one hear fieldworkers (implausibly) compare their fluency in non-Western
languages with that of indigenous children? At any rate, in my own experience of learning
Ilongot culture in the Philippines I constantly compared myself with a child. My first
transcriptions of Ilongot texts were written in awkward, large, bold script, peculiarly like my
first grade son’s efforts to squeeze the “b” or the “p” between the wide lines. His teacher tells
me that Manny’s trouble is small motor coordination, but I don’t know quite how to describe
my own problem while initiating ethnographic fieldwork. Perhaps voluntary infantilization
will do.
Learning a second culture apparently should replicate learning the first one, hence the
process of reinfantilization, and the peculiarly North American equation of the fieldworker
with a child (for a revealing contrast with French anthropology, see Clifford 1983). Perhaps
this process of reinfantilization informs the myth of fieldwork as rebirth and initiation.
134
In any case, the fieldworker’s task as a version of early childhood enculturation and
socialization seemed so natural to me that I eagerly endowed Ilongots with the same
perception. When Ilongots decided to teach us their language, I imagined that they did so by
commanding (tuydek) us to get things, much as they did with their own children (for an
extended treatment of tuydek see M. Rosaldo 1982). In so doing, I conflated my perception
with theirs. Altogether too unconsciously, not to mention mistakenly, I acted on an implicit
cultural universal: it is only natural to imagine that learning a second culture resembles
learning the first one.
Anthropologists often talk about the seeing things from the native point of view. We
invoke native views in discussions of such culturally distinctive notions as honor, shame, the
person, marriage, the family, kinship, hierarchy, and even history. Yet we have given little
thought to how members of other cultures conceive the translation of cultures. How do they
go about understanding cultural difference, whether in their neighbors, their ethnographers, or
their missionaries?
Consider, for example, an Ilongot life history that I recorded from a man named
Tukbaw (R. Rosaldo 1976). Tukbaw and I at the time conceived our task as linguistic. He was
trying to teach me his language, and I was trying to learn it. His first text begins as follows:
We are making a house, a new house. Come here, we are going to cut down some
trees. Now we are going to put it into the ground. I am going to cut and scrape the
earth clean and we will see if we do not put up the house tomorrow. Raise up the
house posts. Go and get some people. Go and get some rattan that we can use for
tying it together. Also, get some grass for the roof.
Reading this text today, I find myself puzzled about Tukbaw’s conception of cross-
cultural understanding. His narrative contains multiple commands, but he clearly did not
think (as, at the time, I imagined) that I was like an Ilongot child who was learning the
meaning of words by following adult commands (tuydek). His words are spoken more man to
man than man to child. In fact, the task he imagines that we are about to begin, tying knots on
houses, is a skill so difficult to achieve that Ilongots regard it as one of the primary
indications that a boy has achieved the status of adult manhood. Tukbaw’s other early texts
similarly describe such other adult activities as visiting, fishing, hunting, and drinking.
Just how Ilongots “put themselves in somebody else’s shoes,” or “see things from the
native point of view,” or whether such terms for cross-cultural understanding even make
sense to them remains unclear to me. They do not suppose, for example, that they can know
what is in another person’s heart. Insofar as I grasp it, their notion is that they achieve cross-
cultural understanding by successfully following another person’s directions (by knowing
how, as the philosophers say, rather than by knowing that). Surely, however, reinfantilization
does not begin to describe Ilongot notions of cross-cultural understanding.
Unassimilable Cultures
Perhaps we should return to the New York Times story and listen for a moment to the
“illegal aliens,” poised as they are on the brink of North American citizenship. Resocialized
by their shared secret lives, they supposedly have already become “people without culture.” It
135
is tempting to assume that monopoly capitalism inexorably commodifies people, turning
them into so many rational decision-making individuals. Yet a certain irresistible something
about the “illegal aliens” bubbles over the rim of the melting pot:
[Lan Thiet Lu, from North Vietnam]: “I feel I belong here. I want to belong here,
especially because I don’t have my country any more.”
[Shunsuke Kurakata, Japan, playing with a symphony orchestra]: he has not decided
if he will seek American citizenship. “I just don’t know yet,” he said. “It’s not all real
yet.”
[Mexican, Marcelino Castro]: He has learned a passable version of English and

exhibits a certain fatalism about his life. “Ni modo,” he says, roughly “what could I
do?” when describing his troubles… Now he wants to start his own business and
become an American citizen. He already owns two color television sets and a
cordless telephone and is a fervent Dallas Cowboys fan. [Reinhold 1986: 10B]
The undocumented speak with a measure of irony. They simultaneously accede to

and resist their cultural homogenization. Even as they move toward co-optation, they prove
unassimilable.
The writer himself manifests a significant factor (or barrier) in this contradictory
process, for he cannot resist indulging his prejudices: his Vietnamese appears inscrutable, his
Japanese successful, and his Mexican fatalistic—“ni modo.” In response to the writer’s
stereotypes, the undocumented both comply and deviate, bobbing and weaving between
assimilation and resistance. The Vietnamese woman feels she belongs here, but notes that she
has no choice because her native country has vanished; the Japanese musician finds possible
citizenship so unreal that he can’t decide whether or not even to apply; the Mexican has a
cordless telephone and roots for the Dallas Cowboys, but speaks only passable English,
spiced with “ni modo.” The writer’s prejudice and the resistance of the undocumented
combine to muddy the clear waters of compliance and assimilation.
Border Zones
The complex case of the undocumented suggests the need for a notion of the border,
conceived as a zone between stable places. The site of the implosion of the Third World into
the first, the border has been portrayed, among other places, in the popular television series,
Miami Vice. Much as the right so often, at least in recent years, masquerades as the left,
Miami Vice disguises itself as affirmative action heaven, with blacks, Ladinos, and whites all
playing cops and robbers, vibrantly policing and trafficking drugs together. Yet the 1984–86
seasons involve a play of racial domination more subtle than the Lone Ranger and Tonto. The
black cop Tubbs consistently acts overly emotional (irrational) and has to be cared for by his
white partner Crockett. During the 1986-87 seasons, Tubbs often nurtures his slightly crazed
partner in a displaced version of the relationship between a nanny and her master.
Stereotypic Latino figures-flamboyant, slimy, lazy, cowardly-pervade the episodes, as

American viewing audiences reinforce or learn forms of prejudice that probably will prove
useful during the coming decade. Official pronouncements about the “Decade of the
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Hispanic” barely conceal diffuse anxieties about the impending impact of demographic
projections for Latinos in the United States.
Strangely enough, a front page story from the San Jose Mercury News suggests that
life under advanced capitalism at times almost imitates television art:
A massive cocaine-selling ring uncovered in Foster City last week was a model
of sophisticated Colombian-run operations common in Southern California but
only recently surfacing on such a large scale in the Bay Area.
Some believe this wholesaling of cocaine, already firmly established in Southern

California, is moving north.
In a typical scenario, some inconspicuous, very middle-class-looking people—often

unarmed middle-aged women—move into a comfortable neighborhood and rent a
condominium by putting down a hefty deposit.
But inside the condos they are guarding huge amounts of cocaine. [Bailey
1986:18]
White zoot suits, high tension mood music, and carefully chosen pastels (especially
during the 1984–86 seasons) may make the blood run faster, but socially invisible
Colombians, perhaps living next door, strike terror in suburban souls.
Not unlike “illegal aliens,” Colombian cocaine peddlers cannot be contained within
the dominant society’s vision of citizenship and assimilation. Evidently, drab reality at once
has been informed by, and appears more threatening than, television fantasy:
Contrary to the stereotype depicted in television shows like “Miami Vice,” the
suspects in many cases drive new but not flashy cars and refrain from displays of
weaponry, exotic or otherwise. [Bailey 1986:6B]
The immigrants who most appear to fit right in—Foster City’s cocaine trafficker’—
are in fact the most alien.
The story involves a play of spatial stereotypes, the South is invading the North, Los
Angeles is infiltrating the Bay Area, and Latino cocaine traffickers are infesting middle-class
neighborhoods. This racial nightmare of the imagination has a venerable genealogy, most
recently invoked by Ronald Reagan when he spoke about Nicaragua’s proximity to south
Texas; it gave the new immigration bill a boost; it assisted California’s overwhelming passage
of the English-only initiative; it informs Miami Vice.
Just as Ilongots have a distinctive conception of cross-cultural understanding, and the

undocumented describe their “assimilation” in peculiar tones, so too Latino zoot suiters enjoy
an alternative view of their own cultural flamboyance. Take, for example, a representative
passage from Jose Montoya’s “El Louie,” an early 1970s evocation of a “pachuco” from the
late 1950s:
137
En Sanjo you’d see him
sporting a dark topcoat playing in his fantasy
the role of Bogart, Cagney
or Raft.
An Louie would come through-

melodramatic music, like in the mono—tan tan taran!—Cruz
Diablo, El Charro Negro! Bogart
smile (his smile as deadly as
his vaisas!) He dug roles, man, and names—like “Blackie,” “Little Louie…”
Ese, Louie…
Chale, man, call me “Diamonds!” [Montoya 1972]
People have often interpreted this poem with too much solemnity. Perhaps El Louie
inhabits the drab world of the lumpenproletariat, but he’s also a ludic figure, playing the role,
the cat role, just plain playing. He seeks out incongruity, unlikely juxtapositions: Cagney, El
Charro Negro; Bogart, Cruz Diablo. “Postmodern” before its time, the poem celebrates
polyphony in its polyglot text, and heterogeneity in making Anglo, Chicano, and Mexican
elements move together in the dance of life. It epitomizes the border as a culturally distinctive
space.
The Play of Cultural Practices
The view of an authentic culture as an autonomous internally coherent universe no

longer seems tenable in a postcolonial world. Neither “we” nor “they” are as self-contained
and homogeneous as we/they once appeared. All of us inhabit an interdependent late 20th-
century world, which is at once marked by borrowing and lending across porous cultural
boundaries, and saturated with inequality, power, and domination.
Most metropolitan typifications suppress, exclude, and even repress border zones.
What the San Jose Mercury News and Miami Vice see as threatening can be seen as ludic.
Perhaps we—El Louie, myself, and others—can serve as reminders that space is neither
necessarily coherent nor always homogeneous. Nor need it parce neatly into zones:
precultural, cultural, and postcultural. It just could be, more often than we usually like to
think, criss-crossed by border zones, pockets, and eruptions of all kinds. These border zones,
pockets, and eruptions, along with our supposedly transparent cultural selves, are as
profoundly cultural as anything else.
138
References Cited
6. Rosaldo, Michelle 1974 Field Journal. MS.
1. Bailey, Brandon 1986 Sophisticated Cocaine Rings 7. Rosaldo, Michelle 1982 The Things We Do with
Moving Into the Bay Area. The San Jose Mercury Words: llongot Speech Acts and Speech Act Theory
News, October 26:1B, 6B. in Philosophy. Language and Society II :203–237.
8. Rosaldo, Renato1976 The Story of Tukbaw: They
2. Clifford, James 1983 Power and Dialogue in Listen as He Orates. In The Biographical Process:
Ethnography: Marcel Griaule’s Initiation. In Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion.
Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Frank Reynolds and Donald Capp, eds. Pp. 121–151.
Fieldwork. George W. Stocking, Jr., ed. Pp. 121–156. The Hague: Mouton.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 9. Rosaldo, Renato 1978 The Rhetoric of Control:
llongots Viewed as Natural Bandits and Wild Indians.
3. Fitzgerald, Frances 1986 Cities on a Hill: A Journey In The Reversible World: Symbolic Inversion in Art
through Contemporary American Cultures. New and Society. Barbara Babcock, ed. Pp. 240–257.
York: Simon and Schuster. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
10. Rosaldo, Renato 1982 Utter Savages of Scientific
4. Montoya, José 1972 El Louie. In Literature Chicana, Value. In Politics and History in Band Societies.
Texto y Contexto. Antonia Castaneda et al., eds. Pp. Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee, eds. Pp. 309–325.
173–176. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
5. Reinhold, Robert 1986 Illegal Aliens Hoping to Claim

Their Dreams. The New York Times, November 3:1,
10.
139
B What is Anthropology?
THOMAS HYLAND ERIKSEN
In the 1950s, anthropologists were discovering change, either as an evolutionary

movement (in the United States) or as an individual innovation (in Britain). But they were
also discovering meaning. Speculation on the meaning of symbols was nothing new. Indeed,
in the United States, the ‘discovery’ was not the least subversive. The most important young
American symbolic anthropologists, Clifford Geertz and David Schneider, both saw
themselves as direct inheritors of the Boasian tradition. In Britain, the situation was different.
Here, the study of meaning was still associated with Frazer, who had speculated extensively
on the functions of magic in The Golden Bough. Durkheim had studied religion, but in its
ritual aspect, rather than as a universe of meaning. It was the organizational practice of
religion, rather than its content with which he was concerned. Weber’s interpretive sociology
was not well known. Thus, the study of meaning, in the British context, was tainted with
evolutionism and was best avoided. The great exception to the rule, here, was Evans-
Pritchard, who had boldly followed Frazer’s topic in his study of Azande witchcraft, before
becoming a main promoter of structural-functionalism. Now he would turn apostate and lead
British anthropology into this new realm. In France, an entirely different pathwas taken. Lévi-
Strauss’s structuralism was widely seen as the crowning achievement of the tradition from
Durkheim and Mauss. But was it? Later French intellectuals would spend many years
discussing this question.
From Function to Meaning
We turn to the British situation first. Now, the interest in meaning was not entirely
absent from the mainstream of British social anthropology. An example was the seminal
article by Jack Goody and the literary theorist Ian Watt, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’
(Goody and Watt 1963), which argued that writing irreversibly changed both the social
structure and the structure of reasoning (or cognitive style) of society. The article, which
sparked a debate with complex ramifications—in part because it intersected with the
elaborate conception of ‘action as text’ proposed by the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (see
Ricoeur 1971)—is definitely concerned with meaning, but with the social functions of
meaning, not with meaning itself. Evans-Pritchard’s interests were more radical than this. He
could afford to be radical. When he succeeded Radcliffe-Brown as Professor at Oxford in
1946, he had already authored two hugely influential monographs and co-edited a book—
African Political Systems—that defined the mainstream research agenda of British
anthropology for two decades. The companion volume, African Systems of Kinship and
Marriage, edited by Radcliffe-Brown and Forde, had much less impact. Firth at the LSE and
Fortes at Cambridge not with standing, Evans-Pritchard was beyond doubt the most powerful
social anthropologist of the time. When, in his Marett lecture on ‘History and social
anthropology’ in 1951, he repudiated structural-functionalism and distanced himself from his
teacher, this was headline news and impossible to ignore for the anthropological community.
In the lecture he claimed, on the one hand, that it would be nonsense to believe that
synchronous studies could yield insights of the same depth as historical studies; on the other,
that in terms of method, social anthropology had more in common with history than with the
natural sciences. He was rejecting two of the main stays of structural-functionalism. In his
later work, Evans-Pritchard abandons the search for ‘natural laws of society’ and attempts,
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more realistically, to understand the meaning of particular social institutions. His second
Nuer book, Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer (1951b), was much more descriptive and
less theoretically ambitious than The Nuer. On the other hand, it contains fewer contestable
ideas. It was in no small measure the elegant, but simple models of The Nuer that led to the
‘revolution’described in the previous chapter. In 1958, the philosopher Peter Winch published
The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy, a book that would subsequently
exert considerable influence on anthropological discourse about intercultural translation. In
the book, Winch argued that it was impossible to establish objective, ‘testable’ knowledge
about cultural phenomena, since their meaning was defined by the cultural universe of which
they were a part. Head opted a strongly relativist position, arguing that there exists no
privileged, ‘context-independent’ position from which to compare and evaluate other cultures,
except for our common experiences of universal bodily processes, such as ‘birth, copulation
and death’ (Winch himself quotes Eliot at this point). Social anthropology was, in Winch’s
view, a Western cultural oddity on a par with the witchcraft institution among the Azande, and
had no right to see its access to knowledge as privileged. Winch used the Azande monograph
as the main example of a philosophically untenable position, since Evans-Pritchard presented
a ‘scientific’ explanation of the ‘obviously mistaken’ belief in witches. What if the tables
were turned? How can we judge whether a ‘witchcraft’ explanation of the ‘obviously
mistaken’ belief in science would be less true? Winch’s book was the starting-point of a long
and important debate about rationality and cultural translation, to which both philosophers
and anthropologists contributed (B.Wilson 1970; Hollisand Lukes 1982; Overing 1985).
It is worth noticing that Evans-Pritchard seems to have arrived at a similar position

independently of Winch. The third volume of the Nuer trilogy, Nuer Religion (1956), is more
interpretive than explanatory; at the outset, the author declares that his main ambition is to
make sense of the Nuer worldview, not to explain it sociologically. In this, he is in accord
with his Oxford colleague and close associate in his later period, Godfrey Lienhardt, whose
later work on the Nuer’s neighbours, the Dinka, was similarly interpretive (see Lienhardt
1961). Understanding and translation now had become a more pressing task than explanation
and the search for general ‘laws’. On the other hand, it is also true, as Evans-Pritchard’s
student, Mary Douglas(1980) says, that his entire output was marked by continuity—from the
Azande book onwards. Even The Nuer, which is often described as the archetype of
orthodoxy, is in fact an evocative, even a poetic, book. While the renewed focus on change in
British anthropology is often described as a transition from structure to process, the change in
Evans-Pritchard’s position was a movement from function to meaning. Especially two of his
intellectual descendants would, in the decades following the Marett lecture, fulfil the promise
of a combination of a micro-sociology concerned with integration, and an interpretive method
concerned with symbolic significance. The first was Gluckman’s student Victor Turner
(1922–83). During the 1950s and 1960s, he developed a perspective on symbols and social
cohesion which has become increasingly influential ever since. Unlike Leach, Turner was
mainly concerned with ritual, not myth; and while Leach saw the germ of social dissolution
in myths, Turner ultimately saw rituals as cohesive (though not as unchanging). As Durkheim
had implied, they offered splendid material for the ethnography since they expressed the
central values and tensions of a society in an intensely concentrated form. Turner’s approach
to rituals, which was increasingly oriented towards symbols rather than social integration,
nevertheless sought to combine a concern with symbolic meaning with an underlying
Durkheimian notion of cohesion. In one of the most influential British monographs of the
1950s, Schism and Continuity in an African Society (Turner 1957), he introduced the concept
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of the social drama. Like most of his writings on ritual, its ethnographic focus is on the
Ndembu of Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), and the main problem is a classic one, namely how
matrilineal societies (like the Ndembu) solve the problem of integration. While succession,
inheritance and group membership are united in a single principle among patrilineal peoples,
different rights and duties are based on different criteria among matrilineal groups. In the
social drama, which tends to be a rite of passage, underlying norms are given a symbolic
expression, and the ritual thereby contributes to the integration of society. Although the
monograph was structural-functionalist in its basic assumptions, it suggested that change was
on its way.
In a series of articles written in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and published as The
Ritual Process in 1967, Turner developed his influential theory of ritual communication. In
‘Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites-de-Passage’, he introduced the concept of
liminality, later a staple in anthropological studies of ritual (and, it sometimes seems, almost
anything else). Taking his cue from van Gennep’s early work on rites of passage, Turner
regards the ritual, and in particular the initiation ritual, as a process of transformation
whereby a person moves from one defined state to another, with an intervening period of
uncertainty and crisis. It is this state of crisis—the liminal stage—that is the focus of the
ritual, which seeks to control it and to impose the values of society upon the wavering
individual who is, for a short but critical period, ‘betwixt and between’. In this ‘gap’ between
social statuses, neither old nor new rules apply, and the individual is compelled to reflect on
her situation, her place in society and indeed the existence of society as such. Thus, liminality
is both a critical and a creative state of being, and change seems a potential of any ritual. And
yet, in the end, the initiate is nearly always re-integrated into society. In other words, there is
continuity with both Durkheim and Gluckman in Turner’s work, which nevertheless stands
out through its emphasis on the individual, its preoccupation with the meaning of symbols,
and its focus on critical phases in social process. Turner also emphasised the multivocality or
multiple meanings of symbols, implying that symbols themselves might be a tension-filled
source of change, and that identical symbols could mean different things to different people,
thus creating a sense of community among people who were otherwise very different. In
another couple of decades, the latter idea would be followed up by students of nationalism.
Another Africanist of structural-functionalist descent who would give social anthropology a
determined thrust towards the study of symbols in their social context, was Mary Douglas
(1921– ).
A student of Evans-Pritchard, Douglas studied the Lele of Kasai, Belgian Congo, in

the late 1950s. This brought her into close contact with French and Belgian anthropology, and
she would eventually be more influenced by Durkheim himself than by Radcliffe-Brown. Her
most influential early work was not the monograph that came out of the fieldwork, but a
theoretical and comparative study of symbolic boundaries and classification, Purity and
Danger (1966). The book combines an almost orthodox structural-functionalism with a
highly sophisticated symbolic analysis drawing on both structuralist and psycho analytical
impulses. Hugely successful both within and outside anthropology, Purity and Danger is, in a
way, a British counterpart to Patterns of Culture. In both cases, the concern is with group
identity and values; but whereas Benedict does not look beyond the symbolic aspects of
culture, Douglas consistently links symbols to social institutions in the classic Durkheimian
way. In her view, symbols are means of social classification, which distinguish between
various categories of objects, persons or actions, and keep them separate. The order of the
classificatory system reflects and symbolises the social order, and ‘intermediate’,
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‘unclassifiable’ phenomena therefore represent a threat to social stability. Snakes (animals
without legs) and substances that pass in and out of the body, are regarded as problematic.
Foods are often ordered in hierarchies of ‘pure’ and ‘polluted’,which have nothing to do with
their nutritional value. Bodily waste is universally polluting and potentially dangerous, since
it symbolically challenges the existing order. Where Barth, for example, would see an
unorthodox, unclassifiable person as a potential entrepreneur, as someone who might make
change come about, Douglas would see the same person as a classificatory anomaly. This
contrast indicates the differences between systemic and actor-centred perspectives, as they
appeared in British anthropology in the 1960s. Both Douglas and Turner would refine and
expand their perspectives through the next decades. Douglas, who is still active today, would
eventually do pioneering work on economic consumption (Douglas and Isherwood 1979),
risk perception and modern technology, and institutional anthropology. Turner, who moved
to the United States in 1961, would develop his ideas of liminality into a general theory of
ritual performance (Turner 1969, 1974, 1987). Though Turner died in 1983, his influence
continued to grow during the 1980s and 1990s, when his concern with performative play and
reflexivity would be welcomed by the postmodernist movement in anthropology, and by
anthropologists concerned with bodily experience, emotions and the symbolic dimensions of
power. Though his intellectual itinerary thus passes from a fairly orthodox structural-
functionalism to a radical focus on aesthetics and performance, he remained at heart a
Durkheimian—although his Durkheimianism differed radically from that of Radcliffe-Brown.
Ethnoscience and Symbolic Anthropology
While many anthropologists in the early postwar years, especially in Britain, rejected
attempts to turn anthropology into an accurate science, others went in the opposite direction.
This was not only the case with the American cultural ecologists and the British
methodological individualists, but also—perhaps surprisingly—with people working within
the broad framework of American linguistic anthropology. Several of Sapir’s successors
explored semantics and language structures in traditional societies in an accurate way. Some
of these devised quantitative methods tailored to measure frequencies and connections
between native terms, and worked closely with psychologists, linguists and others engaged in
the emerging interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. Among the foremost of these were
Harold Conklin, Charles Frake and Ward Goodenough, who all contributed to the
development of ethnoscience in the 1950s. Ethnoscience was concerned with describing
‘cultural grammars’, through identifying the building-blocks of semantic universes or systems
of knowledge. They drew on both the culture and personality school’s interest in
socialisation, on formal linguistics and on the comparative study of classification, where both
Sapir and Whorf (and, before them, Durkheim and Mauss) had done ground-breaking work.
In its most technical form, ethnoscience appeared as componential analysis, which combined
linguistic anthropology and quantitative methods with the general 1950s concern with
kinship. In its original form, ethnoscience died out some time during the 1960s, but the
general issues it raised have been pursued later in cognitive anthropology (see D’Andrade
1995; Shore 1996). Regardless of methodology, they largely concern the relationship between
the universal and the culturally specific in human knowledge systems. Colour classification
was an early, and relatively simple field, which was explored in this way. There were also
interesting parallels between the concerns of ethnoscience and the emerging rationality debate
in Britain on the one hand, and the concerns of Lévi-Straussian structuralism on the other
hand. However, unlike both Winch and Lévi-Strauss, the ethnoscientists worked inductively,
amassing huge amounts of data which were processed by the massive, sluggish computers of
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the day. After Boas’s death, the pater familias of American anthropology was Kroeber. In
1952, he published, with Clyde Kluckhohn (1905–60), Culture: A Critical Review of
Concepts and Definitions, which discusses 162 definitions of culture, and ends by
recommending the abandonment of Tylor’s and Boas’s all-embracing concept in favour of a
definition limited to cognitive (symbolic, meaningful) culture.
In the 1950s, American anthropology was still largely dominated by Boas’s students,
who produced rather predictable work in the culture and personality tradition, often merged
with Durkheimian and Weberian ideas, which were gradually gaining acceptance in the USA,
largely through the work of Parsons, who collaborated with several of the leading American
anthropologists of the day. One of the most interesting monographs of this period was
Kluckhohn’s Navaho Witchcraft (1944), which resembles Evans-Pritchard’s Azande
monograph, in that it attempts to combine a sociological, functionalist analysis with a
psychological perspective. The swing towards the study of meaning which took place in
British anthropology had its parallel in the USA, not least thanks to Parsons’s influence.
Parsons, the leading social scientist in the USA in the 1950s, had monumental visions for the
social sciences, and was well connected with funding agencies. He suggested a ‘temporary
division of labour’ between sociology and anthropology, in which the sociologists would
study power, labour and social organisation, while the anthropologists (in accordance with
the new, cognitive definition of culture) would focus on the symbolic and meaningful aspects
of social life. In an article jointly authored by Parsons and Kroeber in 1958, this ‘truce’ (as the
authors themselves called it) was programmatically endorsed (see Kuper 1999: 69). Although
twentieth-century American anthropology had always concentrated chiefly on the symbolic,
this development entailed a further narrowing of the subject—or, at least, part of it.
Geertz and Schneider
Two of the postgraduate students who received funds through a joint Parsonian-
Kroeberian programme at Harvard were Clifford Geertz (1926–2006) and David M.
Schneider (1918–1995). Both took part in interdisciplinary projects during their Ph.D. studies
—Schneider doing fieldwork on Yap, in Micronesia, Geertz on Java. Both at the time
endorsed the cognitive definition of culture, with Geertz, in his early work, carefully
distinguishing between two ‘logics of integration’: society, or social structure, was integrated
‘causal functionally’, while culture, or the symbolic realm, was integrated ‘logico-
meaningfully’. The two subsystems, he argued, true to the 1950s ‘truce’, could in principle be
studied independently of each other.
In the 1960s, Geertz and Schneider emerged as the most important American
symbolic anthropologists (along with Turner, who was by now in the USA), with research
programmes that were sharply opposed to the materialist views of Steward’s students, such as
Wolf and Sahlins (for a while a colleague of Geertz at Chicago). Both Geertz and Schneider
eventually saw the ‘division of labour’ between sociology and anthropology as a limitation,
but instead of re-conquering the social, they expanded the field of culture as a symbolic
system. They began to promote an idea of culture as an independent, self-sustaining system,
which could perfectly well be studied without taking societal conditions into account. This
view was met with hostility in Britain, where the idea that meaning could be studied without
taking social organisation into account seemed patently absurd. Schneider’s best known work
is American Kinship (1968), a study of American kinship terms based on interview data
collected by his students. The ‘American Kinship Project’ was the result of a cooperation
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between Firth and Schneider. The two anthropologists, who had spent a year together at
Stanford University during the late 1950s, agreed that it would be of interest to extend the
anthropological tradition of kinship studies to modern societies, and inaugurated a
comparative project of middle-class kinship in London(Firth) and Chicago (Schneider).
Although the comparative aspect of the project was never realized, and the two studies were
published separately, Schneider’s book became a milestone in kinship research, in part
because it demonstrated that kinship studies in complex societies were possible and
interesting, and in part because it fundamentally challenged the way in which anthropologists
thought about kinship. After Evans-Pritchard’s defection, kinship studies remained the last
stronghold of structural-functionalism, which had not yet been affected by the new
methodological individualism. Then, in 1962, John Barnes published the critical article
‘African models in the New Guinea Highlands’ (reprinted in Barnes 1990), which
demonstrated conclusively that the theory of segmentary lineages, which had so successfully
been applied in Africa, could not be transferred to the New Guinea context without seriously
distorting the data.
The problem lay not with the kinship terms themselves. It was possible to interpret
the New Guinea material in the orthodox way, but such an interpretation flew in the face of
native understandings of kinship as well as their practices. Schneider’s book made a similar
statement, but its conclusions were more radical. While Firth, in his London study, had
catalogued a fairly standard range of kinship terms, Schneider’s informants were asked to
give information about allthe relatives with whom they had any kind of kin relationship.A far
broader view of kinship thus became possible, indeed, it emerged that kinship constituted an
entire cultural universe, within which the informants moved at will. This implied that the idea
of kinship as a biologically based model of human relations was faulty. This was not a new
observation, but in Schneider’s version, a culture could construct kinship entirely from
scratch, without any reference to blood-ties whatsoever. Moreover, within ‘the culture of
kinship’ each individual term derived its meaning from the integrated semantic network of
which it was a part, and which was unique for the culture in question. This meant that even
elementary kinship terms, such as ‘father’, would have different meanings in different kinship
cultures—which undermined the entire project of comparative kinship studies that had
survived since Morgan. Schneider’s redefinition of kinship from social structure to culture
has parallels in the work of Geertz. Geertz’s association with Parsons at Harvard has already
been mentioned. However, influences from European sociology, from Boas, and even from
Steward’s cultural ecology, are also apparent. Geertz’s early work dealt with a wide variety
of themes, from ecology (1963a) and economy (1963b) to religion (1960). His oft-cited and
eloquent article on ‘thick description’ (1964, reprinted in Geertz 1973) states his
methodological credo, and argues, in line with Malinowski and Boas, that anthropologists
should seek to describe the world from the native’s point of view. Of the European
sociologists, Geertz was familiar with both Durkheim and Weber, in addition to Alfred Schütz
(1899–1959), a German social phenomenologist who insisted on an interpretive approach to
action.
The decisive intellectual impulse in Geertz’s mature work, however, came from the
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913– ), who had argued that society (or culture) can be
interpreted as a text, using the interpretive methods of hermeneutics that were specifically
evolved for this purpose. Hermeneutics is a method of approaching a text that has its roots in
medieval exegesis of texts, notably the Bible, and which has since been used extensively by
historians, literary theorists and philosophers. Very briefly, it states that a text is
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simultaneously an assemblage of individual parts and a seamless whole, and that interpreting
the text involves a movement to and from between these two poles. When Geertz introduced
this notion into anthropology, it seemed to obviate the distinction between methodical
individualism and collectivism, since a society cannot be understood without taking account
of both perspectives.
On the other hand, it also seemed to imply that social phenomena must be’read’, not
only by the anthropologist, but by the members of society themselves. As opposed to the
British anthropologists, who focused on the individual as a (normative or strategic) actor,
Geertz thus introduced the individual as a reader. Against their assumption that society was
rationally constituted and that the individual might participate in it through rational activity,
Geertz posited the idea that the world is often incomprehensible, and that the subject must
actively interpret what she sees. Thus, in the article ‘Religion as a cultural system’ (1966,
reprinted in Geertz 1973), he argued that religion is not primarily a functionally integrated
subsystem of a social whole, but a means for individuals to make sense of the world. In 1973,
Geertz’s most important early articles were collected in The Interpretation of Cultures, and
his reputation has been on the rise ever since. During the 1980s in particular, he was viewed
as a kind of postmodernist avant la lettre, although it seems obvious to the present authors
that this is at least a partial over simplification.
Lévi-Strauss and Structuralism
The son of prosperous Jewish parents of the cultured middle class, Claude Lévi-
Strauss (1908– ) studied philosophy and law in Paris in the early 1930s, and associated with
the intellectual circle around the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1935–39, he
taught at the University of São Paolo in Brazil, and carried out short-term field trips to several
peoples of the Amazon region. Being a Jew, he again left France during the Second World
War, and upon the intercession of Métraux and Lowie, he was offered a position at the New
School of Social Research in New York City, where he stayed until 1945. While in New York,
he was influenced by Boasian anthropology, and met the great Russian-American linguist,
Roman Jakobson (1896–1982), whose structural linguistics would become a mainstay of
Lévi-Strauss’s later work. He received his doctorate in Paris in 1947, and published his
dissertation in 1949 as Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (The Elementary Structures
of Kinship, 1969). It was a book that would revolutionise kinship studies. Six years later,
Lévi-Strauss published the ultimate anthropological travelogue, Tristes Tropiques (1955), a
wide-ranging, beautifully written and intricately composed narrative, so full of suggestive and
haunting passages that it would be useless to summarise it here. Then, after three more years,
came a collection of articles, Anthropologie structurale (1958; Structural Anthropology,
1963a). Together, these three books established Lévi- Strauss’s reputation as a formidable
thinker with enormous ethnographic and theoretical knowledge, and outlined the monumental
lifework that would unfold over the next four decades. By now, he had also established
structuralism, the theoretical approach for which he is renowned. Structuralism is a theory
that attempts to grasp the general qualities of meaningful systems, most famously, in Lévi-
Strauss’s own work, of kinship systems and myths. Such systems consist of elements, but the
elements themselves are not delineated categories or objects, but relationships. A kinship
system, for example, is a meaningful system and thus consists of relationships, rather than
positions (‘statuses’). A father is not in himself a father, but only in relationship to his
children. The idea that meaning was relational was not in itself new. It was an important
component of Jakobson’s structural linguistics, as
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well of the semiotic linguistics established by Ferdinand de Saussure before the FirstWorld
War. In both, meaning derives from the relationship—the contrast or difference—between
linguistic elements (phonemes, words, signs). Relational meaning was also central to
cybernetics—as Bateson liked to say, meaning is a ‘difference that makes a difference’
(1972: 453).
Finally, and most importantly, relational meaning is implicit in Mauss’s discussion of

the gift. Here, objects are charged with magical power by the relationships through which
they move. It is the exchange that gives the gift its meaning (see Lévi-Strauss 1987a [1950]).
The advantage of reducing meaningful systems to structures of contrasts is that the flow of
time within the system is frozen. Living language is reduced to a static grammar. The
confusing enactment of kinship in practice is reduced to a lucid, formal structure. Roughly,
structuralist analysis consists, first, in unearthing this structure; second, in deducing its
underlying principles—its ‘logic’; and finally, in arriving at a universal ‘logic of logics’ of
human communication. The technicalities of this process need not concern us here, but we
shall briefly outline how it was expressed in The Elementary Structures of Kinship.
Structural-functionalism’s reputation rested to a great extent on its analyses of segmentary
lineage systems, which seemed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the role of kinship as the
prime organizational principle in tribal societies. Lineage theory, in turn, presupposed a
primary emphasis on linear kin relationships (grandfather-father-son), while lateral
relationships (husband-wife, sibling-sibling) were often downplayed. All of this was upset by
Elementary Structures. In Lévi-Strauss’s view, kinship was not primarily a mode of social
organisation, but a meaningful system, a system of relationships and the primary relationship
was not the ‘natural’ bond of blood (parent-child), but the socially constructed bond between
husband and wife. Marriage is the point of indeterminacy in biological kinship—you cannot
choose your parents, but you must choose your spouse. For Lévi-Strauss, this choice is the
fissure through which culture enters kinship, transforming tribal society from biology to
culture. Clearly, the integrity of this choice must be safeguarded. It must not appear to be
determined by nature. You must not marry your siblings; they are ‘too close’, ‘too natural’, it
would be too much like marrying yourself. It would do nothing to ‘open up’ your world, to
give it meaning by relating it to something else. In marriage, as practiced in tribal societies,
women are exchanged between groups of men, and a meaningful relationship is formed
between these groups—a lateral kin relationship which Lévi-Strauss refers to as an alliance.
From this, the logic of kinship is deduced—that is from lateral, rather than linear, kin
relations.
The result is a theory diametrically opposed to lineage theory, that places alliance
above descent, contrast above continuity, arbitration above norms, meaning above
organisation. In a rather brisk letter written near the end of his life, Radcliffe-Brown told the
Frenchman that they would probably always talk past each other. Still, Lévi-Strauss expresses
more respect for Radcliffe-Brown than for Malinowski, ‘for whom culture is merely a
gigantic metaphor for digestion’ (Lévi-Strauss 1985). Radcliffe-Brown and Lévi-Strauss had
a common interest in uncovering the hidden structures that governed thought and social life,
and a common ancestor in Durkheim—and though they belonged to very different segments
of his line age, well, blood (to give Radcliffe-Brown the last word) is thicker than water.
Lévi-Strauss’s further writings are hard to summarize. His books are long, erudite, packed
with facts, and held together by some very sophisticated, and at times very technical,
thinking. Thus, Le Totémisme aujourd’hui (1961; Totemism, 1963b) seems to be a discussion
of the concept of totemism (which is debunked), but it is also (among other things) a highly
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ambiguous critique of the Western opposition of nature and culture. La Pensée sauvage
(1962; The Savage Mind, 1966) discusses a fairly standard ‘primitive’ vs. ‘modern’
dichotomy, reminiscent of Durkheim, Weber or Tönnies, but starts with an inventory of the
detailed knowledge that ‘primitives’ have of their natural surroundings, and ends with a
critique of Sartre’s theory of history. Earlier, ‘The science of the concrete’, Lévi-Strauss
establishes the basis of ‘savage’ or ‘mythical’ (in contrast to ‘modern’ or’scientific’) thought.
Both are equally complex and equally rational, but their governing rationalities differ.
The bricoleur starts with the world that is directly accessible to his senses. He relates
the objects found in this world to each other, and builds structures of meaning out of them,
that are narrated, for example, as myths. Thus he creates structure out of events. The engineer,
in contrast, creates events out of structure. He starts with a blueprint, an abstraction that the
senses cannot perceive, and by manipulating it he changes the real world.
The Savage Mind marks the transition from Lévi-Strauss’s ‘kinship period’ to his
‘mythology period’. The most remarkable work of this latter period is the Mythologiques, a
vast, four-volume compilation and analysis of Native American myth, published between
1967 and 1974. The sheer complexity of this work has limited its influence, just as the
(relative) simplicity of The Savage Mind has made it exceedingly popular.
Early Impact
Lévi-Strauss’s impact on Anglo-Saxon anthropology was limited before the 1960s,

and his early work was belatedly translated into English. The Elementary Structures of
Kinship appeared in translation only in 1969, and for a long time, the book was largely
known indirectly, through an introduction written by a Dutch anthropologist—the founder of
another, older structuralist school—J.P.B. Josselin de Jong (1952). In spite of the dearth of
translated texts, Lévi-Strauss was from the first a controversial and influential author. In
France, structuralism became an alternative to Marxism and phenomenology in the 1950s,
and the impact of structuralism on general intellectual life was at least as pronounced as in
anthropology. Important non-anthropologists such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and
Pierre Bourdieu were brought up on structuralism and eventually rebelled against it—and
their rebellion was in turn noted and debated by anthropologists, who brought these authors
into the canon of anthropology. In Britain, Leach was the first of the leading anthropologists
to be attracted to Lévi-Strauss. Lévi-Strauss himself had commented quite extensively on
kinship among the Kachin, and Leach immediately recognised the relevance of his
conclusions for his own data. In structuralism, Leach discovered a sophisticated alternative to
the often common sensical and pedestrian British empiricism, and in 1970, he wrote an
introduction to Lévi-Strauss, which substantially increased knowledge of his work in the
English-speaking world. The Oxford anthropologist Rodney Needham, who had studied with
Josselin de Jong in Leiden, was another early enthusiast for Lévi-Strauss, although he had
certain reservations from the beginning (Needham 1962). These were further strengthened by
an unfortunate exchange with Lévi-Strauss himself, who repudiated Needham’s interpretation
of his kinship theory in a strongly phrased preface to the English edition of his kinship book.
Needham, for his part, continued to develop structuralist thought about classification and
kinship in innovative directions, but without referring to Lévi-Strauss. Most Anglo-American
anthropologists were nevertheless deeply suspicious of structuralism. They were provoked by
Lévi-Strauss’s abstract models and deductive thinking. Many regarded his work as useless
because it could not be tested empirically (an assessment Lévi-Strauss emphatically disagreed
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with). Lévi-Strauss’s kinship theory (often referred to as alliance theory, as opposed to
structural-functionalist descent theory) was already debated in Britain during the 1950s
(although misunderstandings were inevitable because of the lack of translations). Within
structural-functionalism, there had been growing dissatisfaction with descent theory, which
seemed to be unable to account for kinship systems that were non-unilinear. The structuralist
focus on exchange and alliance seemed to have the potential tore solve these problems, since
it accorded greater weight to lateral than lineal kin relationships; thus it was widely embraced
by anthropologists working in societies without clear-cut unilineal descent groups. In a
famous debate in the journal man, in 1959, Leach thus defended Lévi-Strauss’s views, while
Fortes defended the descent model. But even Leach may have misunderstood Lévi-Strauss’s
intentions, which were less sociological and more concerned with meaning than his British
colleagues tended to believe. Like the formalist-substantivist controversy in economic
anthropology, the debate on alliance versus descent in kinship studies slowly petered out
towards the end of the 1970s. By then, there was a tendency to see the two systems as
complementary (a tradition that may be followed all the way back to Morgan), and Lévi-
Strauss himself proposed a theory of kinship that seemed to incorporate both perspectives
(see Lévi-Strauss 1987b).
In France, Louis Dumont (1911–99) developed his own brand of structuralism, by

combining impulses from Lévi-Strauss with classical European sociology (Durkheim,
Tönnies) into an influential theory of social integration and symbolic meaning. Dumont, who
is particularly well known for his erudite study of the Indian caste system, Homo
Hierarchicus (1968), posited that caste was a cultural system of classification, rather than a
functional means of social organisation (a view not dissimilar to Needham’s). He emphasised
the irreducibility of Indian (Hindu) categories, in explicit opposition to political
anthropologists like Barth, who had described caste in purely sociological terms, and argued
that strategic actors were driven by the same kinds of motivations as Europeans. Still,
Dumont was more sociologically oriented than Lévi-Strauss, and his analysis emphasises the
uniqueness of Indian culture, values and categories.
The State of the Art in 1968
By 1968, anthropology had become a very diverse discipline. The ‘Man the Hunter’
symposium had just been held, demonstrating the power of an ecologically oriented
anthropology. The interpretive anthropology of Geertz had begun to exert its influence.
Peasant studies in Latin America and the Caribbean had become a mainstay at some
American departments. Barth’s radical ‘transactionalism’ (his preferred term was ‘generative
process analysis’) rubbed shoulders with the creative revitalisation of structural functionalism
carried out by Douglas and Turner. The rationality debate was on, formalism confronted
substantivism, alliance theory confronted descent theory, while structuralism loomed on the
horizon, and young radical Marxists and feminists waited in the wings for their share of the
academic pie. New journals, conferences and workshops, monograph series and institutions
devoted to anthropological research made important contributions to the growth and
diversification of anthropology.
The demographic expansion had been formidable. In 1950, a mere 22 Ph.D.s were
awarded in the USA. By 1974, the number had increased to 409, a level that remained stable
atleast until the mid-1990s (Givens and Jablonski 1995). However, the discipline had grown
not only in complexity and size, but in its geographic dispersal. Dutch, Scandinavian, Italian
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and Spanish anthropology became part of the mainstream—in the two former cases, the
Anglo-American influence was strongest; in the latter, the main impulses came from France.
In several Latin American countries, notably Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, indigenous
anthropologies influenced both by the Boas school, by Steward and his students, and by
French anthropology, flourished and did research on both Indians and peasants. But in spite of
strong non-metropolitan milieus such as Leiden and Bergen, the discipline remained
centralised. In Britain, Oxford, Cambridge and London still held the reins, although
Manchester was becoming a power to be reckoned with, and anthropology was taught in
several other places as well. In the USA, the dispersal was greater, since the numbers were
greater, but prominent universities such as Columbia, Yale, Harvard, Berkeley, Stanford,
Michigan and Chicago still had the lead. In France, all roads led towards the prestigious
institutions in Paris. The 1950s and 1960s also saw considerable diversification of the core
areas for ethnographic research. During the 1920s and 1930s British anthropologists had
expanded from the Pacific to Africa, American anthropology saw a less pronounced move
from Native North America to Southand Central America. In France, both Africa and the
Pacific had been important since the 1920s and, after the war, Georges Balandier further
strengthened the African orientation (Balandier 1967), while Dumont and his students
flocked to the Indian subcontinent and Oceania. By the 1960s, the mountaineous New
Guinean highlands had become an extremely fertile area for ethnographic research, and with
this change came new perspectives on gender relations, warfare, exchange and kinship. For
although anthropological research may be carried out anywhere, each region tends to confront
ethnographers with new questions. In spite of occasional attempts at dialogue, there was still
little contact between the three dominant national traditions. As we have repeatedly pointed
out in the last two chapters, research interests were frequently similar, but the theoretical
approaches were sufficiently different to make direct discussion difficult. Firth and Schneider
had to abandon their comparison of kinship in London and Chicago.
Lévi-Strauss debunked Needham’s interpretation of his work. While Kroeber and

Kluckhohn presented 162 definitions of culture, few British anthropologists had discussed the
concept since Tylor. There was a lot of individual movement going on, though mostly in a
westward direction: Bateson, Turner and Polany I had settled in the USA, and Lévi-Strauss
spent the war there. Many others were to make the move later, particularly from Britain. The
national traditions were nevertheless still relatively bounded. Language differences played
their part in this. The belated translations of Lévi-Strauss delayed the acceptance of
structuralism by at least a decade in most of the English-speaking world, and research
published in less prestigious European vernaculars than French generally fared even worse.
Throughout much of the ‘Third World’ (a term introduced into English by anthropologist
Peter Worsley in 1964; in French le tiers monde had been used, with a slightly different
meaning, since the 1950s), these problems were exacerbated by the lack of adequate
economic resources in academia. Finally, political conflicts delayed the internationalisation
of the discipline. In the former colonies, hostility was often directed at anthropology as such,
thus inhibiting and sometimes even halting its spread. With decolonisation, the relationship
between metropolitan institutions and their colonial counterparts was severed. In Europe two
decades earlier, the Iron Curtain had effectively prevented most academic contacts between
East and West. Anthropology was becoming a global discipline, as scholars increasingly
started publishing in English, but even in the West, scholars in, say, Stockholm, could draw
inspiration from metropolitan anthropologists, but they could also feel certain that their own
work would never be read outside of Scandinavia unless they chose to publish in a foreign
language. With the next chapter, we rapidly approach the present, and we begin to recognise
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research interests that are still high on the agenda at the turn of the millennium. The radical
Marxism of the 1970s lies at the root of various present-day research agendas. The radical
feminism of that decade has been transformed into sophisticated gender studies. Research on
ethnicity in complex societies has continued, and spawned later burgeoning interest in
nationalism. The new discussions of fieldwork methods that saw the light of day in the early
1970s were soon to be drawn up into wider debates on reflexivity and field ethics, which are
still eliciting professional interest. On the other hand, the political awareness that was so
powerful in anthropology during these years eventually receded, along with the optimistic
hope that anthropological insight could change the world. Nevertheless, while anthropologists
in 1968 were still grappling with problems that would soon seem outdated, several of the
concerns of 1978 remained important in 2001 as well.
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C The First Farmers
THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
In the previous chapter, we considered some of the economic implications of the end of
the Ice Age in Europe. With glacial retreat, foragers pursued a more generalized economy,
focusing less on large animals. This was the beginning of what Kent Flannery (1969) has
called the broad-spectrum revolution. This refers to the period beginning around 15,000
b.p. in the Middle East and 12,000 b.p. in Europe, during which a wider range, or broader
spectrum, of plant and animal life was hunted, gathered, collected, caught, and fished. It was
revolutionary because in the Middle East it led to food production—human control over the
reproduction of plants and animals.
The Mesolithic
The broad-spectrum revolution in Europe includes the late Upper Paleolithic and the
Mesolithic, which followed it. Again, because of the long history of European archaeology,
our knowledge of the Mesolithic (particularly in southwestern Europe and the British Isles) is
extensive. The Mesolithic had a characteristic tool type—the microlith (Greek for “small
stone”). Of interest to us is what an abundant inventory of small and delicately shaped stone
tools can tell us about the total economy and way of life of the people who made them.
By 12,000 b.p., subarctic animals no longer lived in southwestern Europe. By 10,000

b.p. the glaciers had retreated to such a point that the range of hunting, gathering, and fishing
populations in Europe extended to the formerly glaciated British Isles and Scandinavia. The
reindeer herds had gradually retreated to the far north, with some human groups following
(and ultimately domesticating) them. Europe around 10,000 b.p. was forest rather than
treeless steppe and tundra—as it had been during the Upper Paleolithic. Europeans were
exploiting a wider variety of resources and gearing their lives to the seasonal appearance of
particular plants and animals.
People still hunted, but their prey were solitary forest animals, such as the roe deer,
the wild ox, and the wild pig, rather than herd species. This led to new hunting techniques:
solitary stalking and trapping. The coasts and lakes of Europe and the Middle East were
fished intensively. Some important Mesolithic sites are Scandinavian shell mounds—the
garbage dumps of prehistoric oyster collectors. Microliths were used as fishhooks and in
harpoons. Dugout canoes were used for fishing and travel. The process of preserving meat
and fish by smoking and salting grew increasingly important. (Meat preservation had been
less of a problem in a subarctic environment since winter snow and ice, often on the ground
nine months of the year, offered convenient refrigeration.) The bow and arrow became
essential for hunting waterfowl in swamps and marshes. Dogs were domesticated as retrievers
by Mesolithic people (Champion and Gamble 1984). Woodworking was important in the
forested environment of northern and Western Europe. Tools used by Mesolithic carpenters
appear in the archaeological record: new kinds of axes, chisels, and gouges.
Big-game hunting and, thereafter, Mesolithic hunting and fishing were important in
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Europe, but other foraging strategies were used by prehistoric humans in Africa and Asia.
Among contemporary foragers in the tropics, gathering is the dietary mainstay (Lee
1968/1974). Although herds of big game animals were more abundant in the tropics in
prehistory than they are today, gathering probably always has been at least as important as
hunting for tropical foragers (Draper 1975).
Generalized, broad-spectrum economies lasted about 5,000 years longer in Europe
than in the Middle East. Whereas Middle Easterners had begun to cultivate plants and breed
animals by 10,000 b.p., food production reached Western Europe only around 5000 b.p. (3000
b.c.e.) and northern Europe 500 years later.
After 15,000 b.p., throughout the inhabited world, as the big-game supply
diminished, foragers had to pursue new resources. Human attention shifted from large-
bodied, slow reproducers (such as mammoths) to species such as fish, mollusks, and rabbits
that reproduce quickly and prolifically (Hayden 1981). This happened with the European
Mesolithic. It also happened at the Japanese site of Nittano (Akazawa 1980), located on an
inlet near Tokyo. Nittano was occupied several times between 6000 and 5000 b.p. by
members of the Jomon culture, for which 30,000 sites are known in Japan. These broad-
spectrum foragers hunted deer, pigs, bears, and antelope. They also ate fish, shellfish, and
plants. Jomon sites have yielded the remains of 300 species of shellfish and 180 species of
edible plants (including berries, nuts, and tubers) (Akazawa and Aikens 1986).
The Neolithic
The archaeologist V. Gordon Childe (1951) used the term Neolithic Revolution to
describe the origin and impact of food production—plant cultivation and animal
domestication. Neolithic was coined to refer to new techniques of grinding and polishing
stone tools. However, the primary significance of the Neolithic was the new total economy
rather than just its characteristic artifacts, which also included pottery.
The transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic occurs when groups become dependent
on domesticated foods (more than 50 percent of the diet). Usually this happens after a very
long period of experimenting with and using domesticates as supplements to broad-spectrum
foraging. The archaeological signature of Neolithic cultures (which are called Formative in
the Americas) includes dependence on cultivation, sedentary (settled) life, and the use of
ceramic vessels.
Neolithic economies based on food production were associated with substantial

changes in human lifestyles. By 12,000 b.p., the shift toward the Neolithic was under way in
the Middle East (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, and Israel). People started intervening in
the reproductive cycles of plants and animals. No longer simply harvesting nature’s bounty,
they grew their own food and modified the biological characteristics of the plants and animals
in their diet. By 10,000 b.p., domesticated plants and animals were part of the broad spectrum
of resources used by Middle Easterners. By 7500 b.p., most Middle Easterners had moved
away from the broad-spectrum foraging pattern toward more specialized, Neolithic,
economies based on fewer species, which were domesticates.
They had become committed farmers and herders. Kent Flannery (1969) has
proposed a series of eras during which the Middle Eastern transition to farming and herding
took place. The era of seminomadic hunting and gathering (12,000–10,000 b.p.) encompasses
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the last stages of broad-spectrum foraging. This was the period just before the first
domesticated plants (wheat and barley) and animals (goats and sheep) were added to the diet.
Next came the era of early dry farming (of wheat and barley) and caprine domestication
(10,000–7500 b.p.). Dry farming refers to farming without irrigation; such farming depended
on rainfall. Caprine (from capra, Latin for “goat”) refers to goats and sheep, which were
domesticated during this era.
During the era of increased specialization in food production (7500–5500 b.p.), new
crops were added to the diet, along with more productive varieties of wheat and barley. Cattle
and pigs were domesticated. By 5500 b.p., agriculture extended to the alluvial plain of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Figure 11.1), where early Mesopotamians lived in walled towns,
some of which grew into cities. (Recap 11.1 highlights these stages or eras in the transition to
food production in the ancient Middle East.) After two million years of stone-tool making, H.
sapiens was living in the Bronze Age, when metallurgy and the wheel were invented.
First Farmers and Herders in the Middle East
Middle Eastern food production arose in the context of four environmental zones.
From highest to lowest, they are high plateau (5,000 feet, or 1,500 meters), Hilly Flanks,
piedmont steppe (treeless plain), and alluvial desert—the area watered by the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers (100–500 feet, or 30–150 meters). The Hilly Flanks is a subtropical
woodland zone that flanks those rivers to the north (Figure 11.1).
It was once thought that food production began in oases in the alluvial desert.
(Alluvial describes rich, fertile soil deposited by rivers and streams.) This arid region was
where Mesopotamian civilization arose later. Today, we know that although the world’s first
civilization (Mesopotamian) did indeed develop in this zone, irrigation, a late (7000 b.p.)
invention, was necessary to farm the alluvial desert. Plant cultivation and animal
domestication started not in the dry river zone but in areas with reliable rainfall.
The archaeologist Robert J. Braidwood (1975) proposed instead that food production
started in the Hilly Flanks, or subtropical woodland zone, where wild wheat and barley would
have been most abundant (see Figure 11.1). In 1948, a team headed by Braidwood started
excavations at Jarmo, an early food-producing village inhabited between 9000 and 8500 b.p.,
located in the Hilly Flanks. We now know, however, that there were farming villages earlier
than Jarmo in zones adjacent to the Hilly Flanks. One example is Ali Kosh (Figure 11.1), a
village in the foothills (piedmont steppe) of the Zagros mountains. By 9000 b.p., the people
of Ali Kosh were herding goats, intensively collecting various wild plants, and harvesting
wheat during the late winter and early spring (Hole, Flannery, and Neely 1969).
Climate change played a role in the origin of food production (Smith 1995). The end
of the Ice Age brought greater regional and local variation in climatic conditions. Lewis
Binford (1968) proposed that in certain areas of the Middle East (such as the Hilly Flanks),
local environments were so rich in resources that foragers could adopt sedentism—sedentary
(settled) life in villages. Binford’s prime example is the widespread Natufian culture (12,500–
10,500 b.p.), based on broad-spectrum foraging. The Natufians, who collected wild cereals
and hunted gazelles, had year-round villages. They were able to stay in the same place (early
villages) because they could harvest nearby wild cereals for six months.
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Donald Henry (1989, 1995) documented a climate change toward warmer, more
humid conditions just before the Natufian period. This expanded the altitude range of wild
wheat and barley, thus enlarging the available foraging area and allowing a longer harvest
season. Wheat and barley ripened in the spring at low altitudes, in the summer at middle
altitudes, and in the fall at high altitudes. As locations for their villages, the Natufians chose
central places where they could harvest wild cereals in all three zones.
Around 11,000 b.p., this favorable foraging pattern was threatened by a second
climate change—to drier conditions. As many wild cereal habitats dried up, the optimal zone
for foraging shrank. Natufian villages were now restricted to areas with permanent water. As
population continued to grow, some Natufians attempted to maintain productivity by
transferring wild cereals to well-watered areas, where they started cultivating.
In the view of many scholars, the people most likely to adopt a new subsistence
strategy, such as food production, would be those having the most trouble in following their
traditional subsistence strategy (Binford 1968; Flannery 1973; Wenke 1996).
Thus, those ancient Middle Easterners living outside the area where wild foods were
most abundant would be the most likely to experiment and to adopt new subsistence
strategies. This would have been especially true as the climate dried up. Recent
archaeological finds support this hypothesis that food production began in marginal areas,
such as the piedmont steppe, rather than in the optimal zones, such as the Hilly Flanks, where
traditional foods were most abundant.
Even today, wild wheat grows so densely in the Hilly Flanks that one person working
just an hour with Neolithic tools can easily harvest a kilogram of wheat (Harlan and Zohary
1966). People would have had no reason to invent cultivation when wild grain was ample to
feed them. Wild wheat ripens rapidly and can be harvested over a three-week period.
According to Flannery, over that time period, a family of experienced plant collectors could
harvest enough grain—2,200 pounds (1,000 kilograms)—to feed themselves for a year. But
after harvesting all that wheat, they’d need a place to put it. They could no longer maintain a
nomadic lifestyle, since they’d need to stay close to their wheat.
Sedentary village life thus developed before farming and herding in the Middle East.
The Natufians and other Hilly Flanks foragers had no choice but to build villages near the
densest stands of wild grains. They needed a place to keep their grain. Furthermore, sheep
and goats came to graze on the stubble that remained after humans had harvested the grain.
The fact that basic plants and animals were available in the same area also favored village
life. Hilly Flanks foragers built houses, dug storage pits for grain, and made ovens to roast it.
Natufian settlements, occupied year-round, show permanent architectural features

and evidence for the processing and storage of wild grains. One such site is Abu Hureyra,
Syria (see Figure 11.1), which was initially occupied by Natufian foragers around 11,000 to
10,500 b.p. Then it was abandoned—to be reoccupied later by food producers, between 9500
and 8000 b.p. From the Natufian period, Abu Hureyra has yielded the remains of grinding
stones, wild plants, and 50,000 gazelle bones, which represent 80 percent of all the bones
recovered at the site (Jolly and White 1995).
Prior to domestication, the favored Hilly Flanks zone had the densest human
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population. Eventually, its excess population started to spill over into adjacent areas.
Colonists from the Flanks tried to maintain their traditional broad-spectrum foraging in these
marginal zones. But with sparser wild foods available, they had to experiment with new
subsistence strategies. Eventually, population pressure on more limited resources forced
people in the marginal zones to become the first food producers (Minford 1968; Flannery
1969). Early cultivation began as an attempt to copy, in a less favorable environment, the
dense stands of wheat and barley that grew wild in the Hilly Flanks.
The Middle East, along with certain other world areas where food production
originated, is a region that for thousands of years has had a vertical economy. (Other
examples include Peru and Mesoamerica—Middle America, including Mexico, Guatemala,
and Belize.) A vertical economy exploits environmental zones that, although close together in
space, contrast with one another in altitude, rainfall, overall climate, and vegetation (Figure
11.1). Such a close juxtaposition of varied environments allowed broad-spectrum foragers to
use different resources in different seasons.
Early seminomadic foragers in the Middle East had followed game from zone to
zone. In winter they hunted in the piedmont steppe region, which had winter rains rather than
snow and provided winter pasture for game animals 12,000 years ago. (Indeed it is still used
for winter grazing by herders today.) When winter ended, the steppe dried up. Game moved
up to the Hilly Flanks and high plateau country as the snow melted. Pastureland became
available at higher elevations. Foragers gathered as they climbed, harvesting wild grains that
ripened later at higher altitudes. Sheep and goats followed the stubble in the wheat and barley
fields after people had harvested the grain.
The four Middle Eastern environmental zones shown in Figure 11.1 also were tied
together through trade. Certain resources were confined to specific zones. Asphalt, used as an
adhesive in the manufacture of sickles, came from the steppe. Copper and turquoise sources
were located in the high plateau. Contrasting environments were linked in two ways: by
foragers’ seasonal migration and by trade.
The movement of people, animals, and products between zones—plus population

increase supported by highly productive broad-spectrum foraging—was a precondition for
the emergence of food production. As they traveled between zones, people carried seeds into
new habitats. Mutations, genetic recombinations, and human selection led to new kinds of
wheat and barley. Some of the new varieties were better adapted to the steppe and, eventually,
the alluvial desert than the wild forms had been.
Genetic Changes and Domestication
What are the main differences between wild and domesticated plants? The seeds of
domesticated cereals, and often the entire plant, are larger. Compared with wild plants, crops
produce a higher yield per unit of area. Domesticated plants also lose their natural seed
dispersal mechanisms. Cultivated beans, for example, have pods that hold together, rather
than shattering as they do in the wild. Domesticated cereals have tougher connective tissue
holding the seedpods to the stem.
Grains of wheat, barley, and other cereals occur in bunches at the end of a stalk
(Figure 11.2). The grains are attached to the stalk by an axis, plural axes. In wild cereals, this
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axis is brittle. Sections of the axis break off one by one, and a seed attached to each section
falls to the ground. This is how wild cereals spread their seeds and propagate their species.
But a brittle axis is a problem for people. Imagine the annoyance experienced by broad-
spectrum foragers as they tried to harvest wild wheat, only to have the grain fall off or be
blown away.
In very dry weather, wild wheat and barley ripen—their axes totally disintegrating—
in just three days (Flannery 1973). The brittle axis must have been even more irritating to
people who planted the seeds and waited for the harvest. But fortunately, certain stalks of
wild wheat and barley happened to have tough axes. These were the ones whose seeds people
saved to plant the following year.
Another problem with wild cereals is that the edible portion is enclosed in a tough
husk. This husk was too tough to remove with a pounding stone. Foragers had to roast the
grain to make the husk brittle enough to come off. However, some wild plants happened to
have genes for brittle husks. Humans chose the seeds of these plants (which would have
germinated prematurely in nature) because they could be more effectively prepared for
eating.
People also selected certain features in animals (Smith 1995). Some time after sheep
were domesticated, advantageous new phenotypes arose. Wild sheep aren’t woolly; wool
coats were products of domestication. Although it’s hard to imagine, a wool coat offers
protection against extreme heat. Skin temperatures of sheep living in very hot areas are much
lower than temperatures on the surface of their wool. Woolly sheep, but not their wild
ancestors, could survive in hot, dry alluvial lowlands. Wool had an additional advantage: its
use for clothing.
What are some of the differences between wild and domesticated animals? Plants got
larger with domestication, while animals got smaller, probably because smaller animals are
easier to control. Middle Eastern sites document changes in the horns of domesticated goats.
Such change may have been genetically linked to some other desirable trait that has left no
skeletal evidence behind.
We’ve seen that sheep and goats were the first animals to be domesticated in the
ancient Middle East, where the domestication of cattle, pigs, and other animals came later.
Domestication was an ongoing process, as people kept refining and changing the traits they
considered desirable in plants and animals—as they still do today through bioengineering.
Different animals were domesticated at different times and in different regions. The factors
that govern animal domestication are discussed further in the section “Explaining the
Neolithic” later in this chapter.
Food Production and the State
The shift from foraging to food production was gradual. The knowledge of how to
grow crops and breed livestock didn’t immediately convert Middle Easterners into full-time
farmers and herders. Domesticated plants and animals began as minor parts of a broad-
spectrum economy. Foraging for fruits, nuts, grasses, grains, snails, and insects continued.
Over time, Middle Eastern economies grew more specialized, geared more
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exclusively toward crops and herds. The former marginal zones became centers of the new
economy and of population increase and emigration. Some of the increasing population
spilled back into the Hilly Flanks, where people eventually had to intensify production by
cultivating. Domesticated crops could now provide a bigger harvest than could the grains that
grew wild there. Thus, in the Hilly Flanks, too, farming eventually replaced foraging as the
economic mainstay.
Farming colonies spread down into drier areas. By 7000 b.p., simple irrigation
systems had developed, tapping springs in the foothills. By 6000 b.p., more complex
irrigation techniques made agriculture possible in the arid lowlands of southern
Mesopotamia. In the alluvial desert plain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a new economy
based on irrigation and trade fueled the growth of an entirely new form of society. This was
the state, a social and political unit featuring a central government, extreme contrasts of
wealth, and social classes. The process of state formation is examined in the next chapter.
We now understand why the first farmers lived neither in the alluvial lowlands, where
the Mesopotamian state arose around 5500 b.p., nor in the Hilly Flanks, where wild plants
and animals abounded. Food production began in marginal zones, such as the piedmont
steppe, where people experimented at reproducing, artificially, the dense grain stands that
grew wild in the Hilly Flanks. As seeds were taken to new environments, new phenotypes
were favored by a combination of natural and human selection. The spread of cereal grains
outside their natural habitats was part of a system of migration and trade between zones,
which had developed in the Middle East during the broad-spectrum period. Food production
also owed its origin to the need to intensify production to feed an increasing human
population—the legacy of thousands of years of productive foraging.
Other Old World Food Producers
The path from foraging to food production was one that people followed
independently in at least seven world areas. As we’ll see later in this chapter, at least three
were in the Americas. At least four were in the Old World. In each of these centers, people
independently invented domestication, although of different sets of crops and animals.
As we’ll see in more detail later in this chapter, food production also spread from the
Middle East. This happened through trade; through diffusion of plants, animals, products, and
information; and through the actual migration of farmers. Middle Eastern domesticates spread
westward to northern Africa, including Egypt’s Nile Valley, and into Europe (Price 2000).
Trade also extended eastward from the Middle East to India and Pakistan. In Egypt, an
agricultural economy based on plants and animals originally domesticated in the Middle East
led to a pharaonic civilization.
The African Neolithic
Excavations in southern Egypt have revealed considerable complexity in its Neolithic

economy and social system, along with very early pottery and cattle, which may have been
domesticated locally rather than imported from the Fertile Crescent. Located in the eastern
Sahara and southern Egypt, Nabta Playa is a basin that, during prehistoric summers, filled
with water. Over several millennia this temporary lake attracted people who used it for social
and ceremonial activities (Wendorf and Schild 2000). Nabta Playa was first occupied around
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12,000 b.p., as Africa’s summer rains moved northward, providing moisture for grasses, trees,
bushes, hares, and gazelle, along with humans. The earliest settlements (11,000–9,300 b.p.) at
Nabta were small seasonal camps of herders of domesticated cattle. (Note the very early, and
perhaps independent, domestication of cattle here.) According to Wendorf and Schild (2000),
Nabta Playa provides early evidence for what anthropologists have called the “African cattle
complex,” in which cattle are used economically for their milk and blood, rather than killed
for their meat (except on ceremonial occasions). Nabta was occupied only seasonally, as
people came over from the Nile or from better-watered areas to the south. They returned to
those areas in the fall.
By 9000 b.p. people were living at Nabta Playa year-round. To survive in the desert,
they dug large, deep wells and lived in well-organized villages, with small huts arranged in
straight lines. Plant remains show they collected sorghum, millet, legumes (peas and beans),
tubers, and fruits. These were wild plants, and so the economy was not fully Neolithic. By
8800 b.p. these people were making their own pottery, possibly the earliest pottery in Egypt.
By 8100 b.p. sheep and goats had diffused in from the Middle East.
Around 7500 b.p. new settlers occupied Nabta, whose previous inhabitants had been
forced away by a major drought. The newcomers brought a more sophisticated social and
ceremonial system. They sacrificed young cattle, which they buried in clay-lined and roofed
chambers covered with rough stone slabs. They lined up large, unshaped stones. They also
built Egypt’s earliest astronomical measuring device: a “calendar circle” used to mark the
summer solstice. Nabta Playa had become a regional ceremonial center: a place where
various groups gathered seasonally or occasionally to conduct ceremonies and to socialize.
The existence of such centers, as well as their religious, political, and social functions, is
familiar to ethnographers who have worked in Africa. Nabta seems to have been such a
center for prehistoric herders who lived in southern Egypt. It probably began to function as a
regional ceremonial center around 8,100–7,600 b.p., when various groups gathered there for
ceremonial and other purposes during the summer wet season.
Gathering on the northwestern shores of the summer lake, those ancient people left
debris, including numerous cattle bones. At other African Neolithic sites (Edwards 2004),
cattle bones are rarely numerous, which suggests that the cattle were being tapped “on the
hoof” for their milk and blood, rather than being slaughtered and eaten. The numerous cattle
bones at Nabta Playa, however, suggest that its people killed cattle seasonally for ceremonial
purposes. Among modern African herders, cattle, which represent wealth and political power,
are rarely killed except on important ceremonial or social occasions.
Nabta’s role as a regional ceremonial center is also suggested by an alignment of nine

large upright stone slabs near the place where people gathered, along the northwest margin of
the seasonal lake. This formation, probably dating between 7500 and 5500 b.p., recalls
similarly dated large stone alignments found in Western Europe, which were built during the
late Neolithic and early Bronze Age.
Construction of large, complex megalithic structures requires well-organized work

parties and a major effort. This suggests that some authority (religious or civil) may have
been managing resources and human labor over time. The findings at Nabta Playa represent
an elaborate and previously unsuspected ceremonialism, as well as social complexity, during
the African Neolithic.
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The Neolithic in Europe and Asia
Around 8000 b.p., communities on Europe’s Mediterranean shores, in Greece, Italy,

and France, started shifting from foraging to farming, using imported species. By 7000 b.p.,
there were fully sedentary farming villages in Greece and Italy. By 6000 b.p., there were
thousands of farming villages as far east as Russia and as far west as northern France (see
Bogaard 2004).
Domestication and Neolithic economies spread rapidly across Eurasia.

Archaeological research confirms the early (8000 b.p.) presence of domesticated goats, sheep,
cattle, wheat, and barley in Pakistan (Meadow 1991). In that country’s Indus River Valley,
ancient cities (Harappa and Mohenjodaro) emerged slightly later than did the first
Mesopotamian city-states. Domestication and state formation in the Indus Valley were
influenced by developments in, and trade with, the Middle East.
China was also one of the first world areas to develop farming, based on millet and
rice. Millet is a tall, coarse cereal grass still grown in northern China. This grain, which today
feeds a third of the world’s population, is used in contemporary North America mainly as
birdseed. By 7500 b.p., two varieties of millet supported early farming communities in
northern China, along the Yellow River. Millet cultivation paved the way for widespread
village life and eventually for Shang dynasty civilization, based on irrigated agriculture,
between 3600 and 3100 b.p. (See Chapter 12.) The northern Chinese also had domesticated
dogs, pigs, and possibly cattle, goats, and sheep by 7000 b.p. (Chang 1977).
Discoveries by Chinese archaeologists suggest that rice was domesticated in the

Yangtze River corridor of southern China as early as 8400 b.p. (Smith 1995). Other early rice
comes from the 7,000-year-old site Hemudu, on Lake Dongting in southern China. The
people of Hemudu used both wild and domesticated rice, along with domesticated water
buffalo, dogs, and pigs. They also hunted wild game (Jolly and White 1995).
China seems to have been the scene of two independent transitions to food
production, based on different crops grown in strikingly different climates. Southern Chinese
farming was rice aquaculture in rich subtropical wetlands. Southern winters were mild; and
summer rains, reliable. Northern China, by contrast, had harsh winters, with unreliable
rainfall during the summer growing season. This was an area of grasslands and temperate
forests. Still, in both areas by 7500 b.p., food production supported large and stable villages.
Based on the archaeological evidence, early Chinese villagers had architectural expertise.
They lived in substantial houses, made elaborate ceramic vessels, and had rich burials.
At Nok Nok Tha in central Thailand, pottery made more than 5,000 years ago has
imprints of husks and grains of domesticated rice (Solheim 1972/1976). Animal bones show
that the people of Nok Nok Tha also had humped zebu cattle similar to those of contemporary
India. Rice might have been cultivated at about the same time in the Indus River Valley of
Pakistan and adjacent western India.
It appears that food production arose independently at least seven times in different
world areas. Figure 11.3 is a map highlighting those seven areas: the Middle East, northern
China, southern China, sub-Saharan Africa, central Mexico, the south central Andes, and the
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eastern United States. A different set of major foods was domesticated, at different times, in
each area, as is shown in Recap 11.2. Some grains, such as millet and rice, were domesticated
more than once. Millet grows wild in China and Africa, where it became an important food
crop, as well as in Mexico, where it did not. Indigenous African rice, grown only in West
Africa, belongs to the same genus as Asian rice. Pigs and probably cattle were independently
domesticated in the Middle East, China, and sub-Saharan Africa. Independent domestication
of the dog was virtually a worldwide phenomenon, including the Western Hemisphere. We
turn now to archaeological sequences in the Americas.
The First American Farmers
As hunters benefiting from the abundance of big game, bands of foragers gradually
spread through the Americas. As they moved, these early Americans learned to cope with a
great diversity of environments. Eventually their descendants would independently invent
food production, paving the way for the emergence of states based on agriculture and trade in
Mexico and Peru.
The most significant contrast between Old and New World food production involved
animal domestication, which was much more important in the Old World than in the New
World. The animals that had been hunted during the early American big-game tradition either
became extinct before people could domesticate them or were not domesticable (sic). The
largest animal ever domesticated in the New World (in Peru, around 4500 b.p.) was the llama.
Early Peruvians and Bolivians ate llama meat and used that animal as a beast of burden
(Flannery, Marcus, and Reynolds 1989). They bred the llama’s relative, the alpaca, for its
wool. Peruvians also added animal protein to their diet by raising and eating guinea pigs and
ducks.
The turkey was domesticated in Mesoamerica and in the southwestern United States.
Lowland South Americans domesticated a type of duck. The dog is the only animal that was
domesticated throughout the New World. There were no cattle, sheep, or goats in the areas
where food production arose. As a result, neither herding nor the kinds of relationships that
developed between herders and farmers in many parts of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and
Africa emerged in the pre-colonial Americas. The New World crops were different, although
staples as nutritious as those of the Old World were domesticated from native wild plants.
Three key caloric staples, major sources of carbohydrates, were domesticated by

Native American farmers. Maize, or corn, first domesticated in the tropical lowlands of
southwestern Mexico, became the caloric staple in Mesoamerica and Central America and
eventually reached coastal Peru. The other two staples were root crops: white (“Irish”)
potatoes, first domesticated in the Andes, and manioc, or cassava, a tuber first cultivated in
the South American lowlands, where other root crops such as yams and sweet potatoes also
were important. Other crops added variety to New World diets and made them nutritious.
Beans and squash provided essential proteins, vitamins, and minerals. Maize, beans, and
squash were the basis of the Mesoamerican diet. This chapter’s “Appreciating Anthropology”
discusses how anthropologists recently have confirmed that the earliest domesticates,
including squash, in the Americas are about as old as the first Old World domesticates.
Food production was independently invented in at least three areas of the Americas:
Mesoamerica, the eastern United States, and the south central Andes. Mesoamerica is
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discussed in detail below. Food plants known as goosefoot and marsh elder, along with the
sunflower and a species of squash, were domesticated by Native Americans in the eastern
United States by 4500 b.p. Those crops supplemented a diet based mainly on hunting and
gathering. They never became caloric staples like maize, wheat, rice, millet, manioc, and
potatoes. Eventually, maize diffused from Mesoamerica into what is now the United States,
reaching both the Southwest and the eastern area just mentioned. Maize provided a more
reliable caloric staple for native North American farming. Domestication of several species
was under way in the south central Andes of Peru and Bolivia by 5,000 b.p. They were the
potato, quinoa (a cereal grain), beans, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs (Smith 1995). This
chapter’s “Appreciating Anthropology” discusses how anthropologists recently have
confirmed the very early domestication of squash, cotton, and peanuts in Peru.
The Tropical Origins of New World Domestication
Based on microscopic evidence from early cultivated plants, New World farming
began in the lowlands of South America and then spread to Central America, Mexico, and the
Caribbean islands. In Chapter 4 we learned about new techniques that allow archaeologists
and botanists to recover and analyze microscopic evidence from pollens, starch grains, and
phytoliths (plant crystals) (Bryant 2003, 2007a). This evidence has forced revision of old
assumptions, most prominently the idea that New World farming originated in upland areas,
such as the highlands of Mexico and Peru. This chapter’s “Appreciating Anthropology”
reports that domesticated squash seeds from Peru date back 10,000 years. Although found in
the highlands (western Andes), those seeds, along with other domesticates from that site,
were not domesticated there originally. This means that domestication must have occurred
even earlier, most probably in South America’s tropical lowlands.
Dolores Piperno and Karen Stothert (2003) found that phytoliths from cultivated
squashes and gourds are substantially larger than those from wild species. They then used
phytolith size to confirm that domesticated squash and gourds (Cucurbita) were grown in
coastal Ecuador between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago.
According to Piperno and Deborah Pearsall (1998), farming in the tropical lowlands
of Central and South America began at about the same time as food production arose in the
Middle East— around 10,000 years ago. By that time, cultural groups in Panama, Peru,
Ecuador, and Colombia were cultivating plants in garden plots near their homes. Between
9000 and 8000 b.p., changes in seed form and phytolith size suggest that farmers were
selecting certain characteristics in their cultivated plants. By 7,000 years ago, farmers had
expanded their plots into nearby forests, which they cleared using slash-and-burn techniques.
By that time also, early farming ideas and techniques were diffusing from tropical lowlands
into drier regions at higher elevations (Piperno and Pearsall 1998; Bryant 1999, 2003).
What about maize (corn), a major New World crop, long thought to have been
domesticated in the Mexican highlands? Recent molecular and genetic studies indicate that
maize domestication actually took place in the lowlands of southwestern Mexico. The wild
ancestor of maize is a species of teosinte (a wild grain) native to the Rio Balsas watershed of
tropical southwestern Mexico (Holst, Moreno, and Piperno 2007). Evidence for the evolution
of maize from its wild ancestor has yet to be found in that poorly studied region. Still, we can
infer some of the likely steps in maize domestication.
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Such a process would have included increases in the number of kernels per cob, cob
size, and the number of cobs per stalk (Flannery 1973). These changes would make it
increasingly profitable to collect wild teosinte and eventually to plant maize. Undoubtedly,
some of the mutations necessary for domesticated maize had occurred in wild teosinte before
people started growing it. However, since teosinte was well adapted to its natural niche, the
mutations offered no advantage and didn’t spread. But once people started harvesting wild
maize intensively, they became selective agents, taking back to camp a greater proportion of
plants with tough axes and cobs. These were the plants most likely to hold together during
harvesting and least likely to disintegrate on the way back home. Eventually, teosinte became
dependent on humans for its survival because maize lacks a natural means of dispersal—a
brittle axis or cob. If humans chose plants with tough axes inadvertently, their selection of
plants with soft husks must have been intentional, as was their selection of larger cobs, more
kernels per cob, and more cobs per plant.
A phytolith analysis of sediments from San Andrés, in the Mexican state of Tabasco,
confirms the spread of maize cultivation eastward to the tropical Mexican Gulf Coast by 7300
b.p. Data from many sites now confirm that maize spread rapidly from its domestication
cradle in tropical southwestern Mexico during the eighth millennium b.p. (8000–7001)
(Bryant 2007b; Piperno 2001; Pohl et al. 2007). For example, analysis of starch grains from
stone tools in Panama’s tropical lowlands confirms that maize was grown there by 7800–
7000 b.p. (Dickau, Ranere, and Cooke 2007).
During the last century, for reasons enumerated by Vaughn Bryant (2003),
archaeologists tended to seek evidence for early New World farming in the highlands of
Mexico and Peru. These upland areas were easy to reach and had caves and rock shelters with
preserved plant remains. They also were in the vicinity of the centers of major civilizations
that would eventually develop in the Mexican highlands (see Chapter 12). Decades ago,
excavations in the Mexican Valleys of Tehuacan and Oaxaca (see the next section) yielded
well-preserved seeds and fruits, maize kernels and cobs, fibers, and rinds. Few archaeologists
sought the origin of domestication in lowland and jungle regions, which were wrongly
assumed to be infertile and where plants did not preserve well (Bryant 2003). Today, the
microscopic evidence says otherwise and reveals the key role of tropical lowland regions in
early New World farming.
The Mexican Highlands
Long before Mexican highlanders developed a taste for maize, beans, and squash,
they hunted as part of a pattern of broad-spectrum foraging. Mammoth remains dated to
11,000 b.p. have been found along with spear points in the basin that surrounds Mexico City.
However, small animals were more important than big game, as were the grains, pods, fruits,
and leaves of wild plants.
In the Valley of Oaxaca, in Mexico’s southern highlands, between 10,000 and 4000
b.p., foragers concentrated on certain wild animals—deer and rabbits—and plants—cactus
leaves and fruits, and tree pods, especially mesquite (Flannery 1986). Those early Oaxacans
dispersed to hunt and gather in fall and winter. But they came together in late spring and
summer, forming larger groups to harvest seasonally available plants. Cactus fruits appeared
in the spring. Since summer rains would reduce the fruits to mush and since birds, bats, and
rodents competed for them, cactus collection required hard work by large groups of people.
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The edible pods of the mesquite, available in June, also required intensive gathering.
Eventually, people started planting maize in the alluvial soils of valley floors. This
was the zone where foragers traditionally had congregated for the annual spring/summer
harvest of cactus fruits and mesquite pods. By 4000 b.p., a type of maize was available that
provided more food than the mesquite pods did. Once that happened, people started cutting
down mesquite trees and replacing them with corn fields.
By 3500 b.p. in the Valley of Oaxaca, where winter frosts are absent, simple
irrigation permitted the establishment of permanent villages based on maize farming. Water
close to the surface allowed early farmers to dig wells right in their cornfields. Using pots,
they dipped water out of these wells and poured it on their growing plants, a technique known
as pot irrigation. Early permanent villages supported by farming appeared in areas of
Mesoamerica where there was reliable rainfall, pot irrigation, or access to humid river
bottomlands.
The spread of maize farming resulted in further genetic changes, higher yields, higher
human populations, and more intensive farming. Pressures to intensify cultivation led to
improvements in water-control systems. New varieties of fast-growing maize eventually
appeared, expanding the range of areas that could be cultivated. Increasing population and
irrigation also helped spread maize farming. The advent of intensive cultivation laid the
foundation for the emergence of the state in Mesoamerica—some 3,000 years later than in the
Middle East, a process examined in the next chapter.
Explaining The Neolithic
This section focuses on the factors that influenced the origin and spread of Neolithic
economies in various world areas. (Much of this section is based on observations in Chapters
8 through 10 of Jared Diamond’s influential book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of
Human Societies [1997]).
Several factors had to converge to make domestication happen and to promote its
spread. Most plants, and especially animals, aren’t easy—or particularly valuable—to
domesticate. Thus, of some 148 large animal species that seem potentially domesticable (sic),
only 14 actually have been domesticated. And a mere dozen among 200,000 known plant
species account for 80 percent of the world’s farm production. Those 12 caloric staples are
wheat, corn (maize), rice, barley, sorghum (millet), soybeans, potatoes, cassava (manioc),
sweet potatoes, sugarcane, sugar beets, and bananas.
Domestication rested on a combination of conditions and resources that had not come
together previously. The development of a full-fledged Neolithic economy required settling
down. Sedentism, such as that adopted by ancient Natufian hunter-gatherers, was especially
attractive when several species of plants and animals were available locally for foraging and
eventual domestication. The Fertile Crescent area of the Middle East had such species, along
with a Mediterranean climate favorable to the origin and spread of the Neolithic economy.
Among those species were several self-pollinating plants, the easiest wild plants to
domesticate, including wheat, which required few genetic changes for domestication. We’ve
seen that the Natufians adopted sedentism prior to farming. They lived off abundant wild
grain and the animals attracted to the stubble left after the harvest. Eventually, with climate
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change, population growth, and the need for people to sustain themselves in the marginal
zones, hunter-gatherers started cultivating.
Compared with other world areas, the Fertile Crescent region had the largest area
with a Mediterranean climate, with the highest species diversity. As we saw previously, this
was an area of vertical economy and closely packed microenvironments. Such diverse
terrains and habitats concentrated in a limited area offered a multiplicity of plant species, as
well as goats, sheep, pigs, and cattle. The first farmers eventually domesticated several crops:
two kinds of wheat, barley, lentils, peas, and chickpeas (garbanzo beans). As in Mesoamerica,
where corn (supplying carbohydrate) was supplemented by squash and beans (supplying
protein), the Neolithic diet of the Middle East combined caloric staples such as wheat and
barley with protein-rich pulses such as lentils, peas, and chickpeas.
Anthropologists once thought, erroneously, that domestication would happen almost

automatically once people gained sufficient knowledge of plants and animals and their
reproductive habits to figure out how to make domestication work. Anthropologists now
realize that foragers have an excellent knowledge of plants, animals, and their reproductive
characteristics, and that some other trigger is needed to start and sustain the process of
domestication. A full-fledged Neolithic economy requires a minimal set of nutritious
domesticates. Some world areas, for example, North America (north of Mesoamerica),
managed independently to invent domestication, but the inventory of available plants and
animals was too meager to maintain a Neolithic economy. The early domesticates—squash,
sunflower, marsh elder, and goosefoot—had to be supplemented by hunting and gathering. A
full Neolithic economy and sedentism did not develop in the east, southeast, and southwest of
what is now the United States until maize diffused in from Mesoamerica—more than 3,000
years after the first domestication in the eastern United States.
We’ve seen how the presence or absence of domesticable animals helps explain the
divergent trajectories of the Eastern and Western hemispheres in that the mixed economies
that developed in Eurasia and Africa never emerged in Mesoamerica. Of the world’s 14 large
(over 100 pounds) successful domesticated animal species, 13 are from Eurasia, and only 1
(the llama) is from South America. Ancient Mexicans domesticated dogs and turkeys and
created toy wheels, but they lacked sheep, goats, and pigs as well as the oxen or horses
needed to make the wheel a viable transport option. Once the big five Eurasian animal
domesticates (cow, sheep, goat, pig, horse) were introduced into Africa and the Americas,
they spread rapidly.
We’ve seen that detailed knowledge of plants and their reproduction is not a
sufficient condition for domestication to occur. Similarly, the knowledge that animals can be
tamed or kept as pets isn’t enough to produce animal domestication, because not all tamed
animals can be domesticated. Just as some plants (e.g., self-pollinating annuals) are easier to
domesticate than others are, so are some animals. Cattle, dogs, and pigs were so easy to
domesticate that they were domesticated independently in multiple world areas.
Consider some reasons why most large animal species (134 out of 148 big species)
have not been domesticated. Some are finicky eaters (e.g., koalas). Others refuse to breed in
captivity (e.g., vicunas). Some animals are just too nasty to domesticate (e.g., grizzly bears),
and others have a tendency to panic (e.g., deer and gazelles).
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Perhaps the key factor in domestication is animal social structure. The easiest wild
animals to domesticate live in hierarchical herds. Accustomed to dominance relations, they
allow humans to assume superior positions in the hierarchy. Herd animals are easier to
domesticate than solitary ones are. Among the latter, only cats and ferrets have been
domesticated, and there’s some question about the completeness of domestication of those
animals (hence the expression “It’s like herding cats”). A final factor in ease of domestication
is whether a wild animal typically shares its range with others. Animals with exclusive
territories (e.g., rhinoceros, African antelope) are harder to pen up with others than are
animals that share their territories with other species.
Geography and the Spread of Food Production
As Jared Diamond (1997, Chapter 10) observes convincingly, the geography of the
Old World facilitated the diffusion of plants, animals, technology (e.g., wheels and vehicles),
and information (e.g., writing). Most crops in Eurasia were domesticated just once and spread
rapidly in an east-west direction. The first domesticates spread from the Middle East to
Egypt, Northern Africa, Europe, India, and eventually China (which, however, also had its
own domesticates, as we have seen). By contrast, there was less diffusion of American
domesticates.
Look at Figure 11.4 to see that Eurasia has a much broader east-west spread than
does Africa or does either of the Americas, which are arranged north-south. This is important
because climates are more likely to be similar moving across thousands of miles east-west
than north-south. In Eurasia, plants and animals could spread more easily east-west than
north-south because of common day lengths and similar seasonal variations. More radical
climatic contrasts have hindered north-south diffusion. In the Americas, for example,
although the distance between the cool Mexican highlands and the South American highlands
is just 1,200 miles, those two similar zones are separated by a low, hot, tropical region, which
supports very different plant species than the highlands. Such environmental barriers to
diffusion kept the Neolithic societies of Mesoamerica and South America more separate and
independent in the Americas than they were in Eurasia. It took some 3,000 years for maize to
reach what is now the United States, where productive Neolithic economies eventually did
develop. They were based on the cultivation of new varieties of maize adapted to a colder
climate and different day lengths.
In the Old World, the spread of Middle Eastern crops southward into Africa
eventually was halted by climatic contrasts as well. Certain tropical crops did spread west-
east in Africa, but they did not reach Southern Africa because of climatic barriers. Again and
again, the geographic and climatic barriers posed by high mountains and broad deserts have
slowed the spread of domesticates. In what is now the United States, for example, the east-
west spread of farming from the southeast to the southwest was slowed by the dry climates of
Texas and the southern great plains.
This section has examined the factors that favored and retarded the origin and spread
of Neolithic economies in various world areas. Several factors combined to promote early
domestication in the ancient Middle East. The first domesticates spread rapidly across
Eurasia, facilitated by climatic similarities across a broad territorial expanse. In the Americas,
food production spread less rapidly because of north-south contrasts. Another factor that
slowed the Neolithic transition in the Americas was the lack of large animals suitable for
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domestication. Factors that explain the origin and diffusion of food production involve
climate, economic adaptation, demography, and the specific attributes of plants and animals.
Costs And Benefits
Food production brought advantages and disadvantages. Among the advantages were
discoveries and inventions. People eventually learned to spin and weave; to make pottery,
bricks, and arched masonry; and to smelt and cast metals. They developed trade and
commerce by land and sea. By 5500 b.p., Middle Easterners were living in vibrant cities with
markets, streets, temples, and palaces. They created sculpture, mural art, writing systems,
weights, measures, mathematics, and new forms of political and social organization (Jolly
and White 1995).
Because it increased economic production and led to new social, scientific, and
creative forms, food production is often considered an evolutionary advance. But the new
economy also brought hardships. For example, food producers typically work harder than
foragers do—and for a less adequate diet. Because of their extensive leisure time, foragers
have been characterized as living in “the original affluent society” (Sahlins 1972). Certain
foragers have survived into recent times and have been studied by anthropologists. Among
foragers living in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, for example, only part of the group
needed to hunt and gather, maybe 20 hours a week, to provide an adequate diet for the entire
group. Women gathered, and adult men hunted. Their labor supported older people and
children. Early retirement from the food quest was possible, and forced child labor was
unknown.
With food production, yields are more reliable, but people work much harder. Herds,
fields, and irrigation systems need care. Weeding can require hours of arduous bending. No
one has to worry about where to keep a giraffe or a gazelle, but pens and corrals are built and
maintained for livestock. Trade takes men, and sometimes women, away from home, leaving
burdens for those who stay behind. For several reasons, food producers tend to have more
children than foragers do. This means greater childcare demands, but child labor also tends to
be more needed and valued than it is among foragers. Many tasks in farming and herd work
harder than foragers do—and for a less adequate diet. Because of their extensive leisure time,
foragers have been characterized as living in “the original affluent society” (Sahlins 1972).
Certain foragers have survived into recent times and have been studied by anthropologists.
Among foragers living in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa, for example, only part of the
group needed to hunt and gather, maybe 20 hours a week, to provide an adequate diet for the
entire group. Women gathered, and adult men hunted. Their labor supported older people and
children. Early retirement from the food quest was possible, and forced child labor was
unknown.
With food production, yields are more reliable, but people work much harder. Herds,
fields, and irrigation systems need care. Weeding can require hours of arduous bending. No
one has to worry about where to keep a giraffe or a gazelle, but pens and corrals are built and
maintained for livestock. Trade takes men, and sometimes women, away from home, leaving
burdens for those who stay behind. For several reasons, food producers tend to have more
children than foragers do. This means greater child care demands, but child labor also tends
to be more needed and valued than it is among foragers. Many tasks in farming and herding
can be done by children. The division of economic labor grows more complex, so that
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children and older people have assigned economic roles.
And public health declines. Diets based on crops and dairy products tend to be less
varied, less nutritious, and less healthful than foragers’ diets, which are usually higher in
proteins and lower in fats and carbohydrates. With the shift to food production, the physical
well-being of the population often declines. Communicable diseases, protein deficiency, and
dental caries increase (Cohen and Armelagos 1984). Greater exposure to pathogens comes
with food production.
Compared with a seminomadic foraging band, food producers tend to be sedentary.

Their populations are denser, which makes it easier to transmit and maintain diseases. We saw
in Chapter 5 that malaria and sickle-cell anemia spread along with food production.
Population concentrations, especially cities, are breeding grounds for epidemic diseases.
People live nearer to other people and animals and their wastes, which also affect public
health (Diamond 1997). Compared with farmers, herders, and city dwellers, foragers were
relatively disease-free, stress-free, and well nourished.
Other hardships and stresses accompanied food production and the state. Social
inequality and poverty increased. Elaborate systems of social stratification eventually
replaced the egalitarianism of the past. Resources were no longer common goods, open to all,
as they tend to be among foragers. Property distinctions proliferated. Slavery and other forms
of human bondage eventually were invented. Crime, war, and human sacrifice became
widespread.
The rate at which human beings degraded their environments also increased with
food production. The environmental degradation in today’s world, including air and water
pollution and deforestation, is on a much larger scale, compared with early villages and cities,
but modern trends are foreshadowed. After food production, population increase and the need
to expand farming led to deforestation in the Middle East. Even today, many farmers think of
trees as giant weeds to be cut down to make way for productive fields. Previously, we saw
how early Mesoamerican farmers cut down mesquite trees for maize cultivation in the Valley
of Oaxaca.
Many farmers and herders burn trees, brush, and pasture. Farmers burn to remove
weeds; they also use the ashes for fertilizer. Herders burn to promote the growth of new
tender shoots for their livestock. But such practices do have environmental costs, including
air pollution. Smelting and other chemical processes basic to the manufacture of metal tools
also have environmental costs. As modern industrial pollution has harmful effluents, early
chemical processes had byproducts that polluted air, soils, and waters. Salts, chemicals, and
microorganisms accumulate in irrigated fields. These and other pathogens and pollutants,
which were by and large nonissues during the Paleolithic, endanger growing human
populations. To be sure, food production had benefits. But its costs are just as evident. Recap
11.3 summarizes the costs and benefits of food production. We see that progress is much too
optimistic a word to describe food production, the state, and many other aspects of the
evolution of society.
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D The First Cities and States
THOMAS HYLAND ERIKSEN
The Origin Of The State
As food-producing economies spread and became more productive, chiefdoms, and

eventually states, developed in many parts of the world. A state is a form of social and
political organization that has a formal, central government and a division of society into
classes. The first states developed in Mesopotamia by 5500 b.p. and in Mesoamerica some
3,000 years later.
Chiefdoms were precursors to states, with privileged and effective leaders—chiefs—

but lacking the sharp class divisions that characterize states. By 7000 b.p. in the Middle East
and 3200 b.p. in Mesoamerica, there is evidence for what archaeologists call the elite level,
indicating a chiefdom or a state.
How and why did chiefdoms and states originate? Compared with foraging, food
production could support larger and denser populations. Also, the complexity of the division
of social and economic labor tended to grow as food production spread and intensified.
Systems of political authority and control typically develop to handle regulatory problems
encountered as the population grows and/or the economy increases in scale and diversity.
Competition, including warfare, among chiefdoms for territory and resources also can
stimulate state formation. Anthropologists have identified the causes of state formation and
reconstructed the rise of several states. A systemic perspective recognizes that multiple
factors always contribute to state formation, with the effects of one magnifying those of the
others. Although some contributing factors have appeared again and again, no single one is
always present. In other words, state formation has generalized rather than universal causes.
Furthermore, because state formation may take centuries, people experiencing the
process at any time rarely perceive the significance of the long-term changes. Later
generations find themselves dependent on government institutions that took generations to
develop.
Hydraulic Systems
One suggested cause of state formation is the need to regulate hydraulic (water-
based) agricultural economies (Wittfogel 1957). In certain arid areas, such as ancient Egypt
and Mesopotamia, states have emerged to manage systems of irrigation, drainage, and flood
control. However, hydraulic agriculture is neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for
the rise of the state. That is, many societies with irrigation never experienced state formation,
and states have developed without hydraulic systems.
But hydraulic agriculture does have certain implications for state formation. Water
control increases production in arid lands. Because of its labor demands and its ability to feed
more people, irrigated agriculture fuels population growth. This in turn leads to enlargement
of the system. The expanding hydraulic system supports larger and denser concentrations of
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people. Interpersonal problems increase, and conflicts over access to water and irrigated land
become more frequent. Political authorities may arise to regulate production as well as
interpersonal and intergroup relations.
Large hydraulic works can sustain towns and cities and become essential to their
subsistence. Regulators protect the economy by mobilizing crews to maintain and repair the
hydraulic system. These life-and-death functions enhance the authority of state officials.
Thus, growth in hydraulic systems is often (as in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Valley of
Mexico), but not always, associated with state formation.
Long-Distance Trade Routes
Another theory is that states arise at strategic locations in regional trade networks.
These sites include points of supply or exchange, such as crossroads of caravan routes, and
places (e.g., mountain passes and river narrows) situated so as to threaten or halt trade
between centers. Here again, however, the cause is generalized but neither necessary nor
sufficient. Long-distance trade has been important in the evolution of many states, including
those in Mesopotamia and Mesoamerica. Such exchange does eventually develop in all states,
but it can follow rather than precede state formation. Furthermore, long-distance trade also
occurs in societies such as those of Papua New Guinea, where no states developed.
Population, War, and Circumscription
Robert Carneiro (1970) put forth an influential theory that incorporates three factors
working together instead of a single cause of state formation. (We call a theory involving
multiple factors or variables a multivariate theory.) Wherever and whenever environmental
circumscription (or resource concentration), increasing population, and warfare exist,
suggested Carneiro, state formation will begin (Figure 12.1). Environmental circumscription
may be physical or social. Physically circumscribed environments include small islands and,
in arid areas, river plains, oases, and valleys with streams. Social circumscription exists when
neighboring societies block expansion, emigration, or access to resources. When strategic
resources are concentrated in limited areas—even when no obstacles to migration exist—the
effects are similar to those of circumscription.
Coastal Peru, one of the world’s most arid areas, illustrates the interaction of
environmental circumscription, warfare, and population increase. The earliest cultivation
there was limited to valleys with springs. Each valley was circumscribed by the Andes
Mountains to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and desert regions to the north and
south. The advent of food production triggered a population increase. In each valley, villages
got bigger. Colonists split off from the old villages and founded new ones. With more villages
and people, a scarcity of land developed.
Rivalries and raiding developed between villages in the same valley.
Population pressure and land shortages were developing in all the valleys. Because
the valleys were circumscribed, when one village conquered another, the losers had to submit
to the winners—they had nowhere else to go. Conquered villagers could keep their land only
if they agreed to pay tribute to their conquerors. To do this, they had to intensify production,
using new techniques to produce more food. By working harder, they managed to pay tribute
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while meeting their own subsistence needs. Villagers brought new areas under cultivation by
means of irrigation and terracing.
Those early inhabitants of the Andes didn’t work harder because they chose to do so.
They were forced to pay tribute, accept political domination, and intensify production by
factors beyond their control. Once established, all these trends accelerated. Population grew,
warfare intensified, and villages eventually were united in chiefdoms. The first states
developed when one chiefdom in a valley conquered the others (Carneiro 1990). Eventually,
different valleys began to fight. The winners brought the losers into growing states and
empires—mature, territorially larger, and expansive systems—which eventually expanded
from the coast to the highlands. By the 16th century, from their capital, Cuzco, in the high
Andes, the Inca ruled one of the major empires in the tropics.
Carneiro’s theory is very useful, but again, the association between population
density and state organization is generalized rather than universal. States do tend to have large
and dense populations (Stevenson 1968). However, population increase and warfare within a
circumscribed environment did not trigger state formation in highland Papua New Guinea.
Certain valleys there are socially or physically circumscribed and have population densities
similar to those of many states. Warfare also was present, but no states emerged. Again, we
are dealing with an important theory that explains many but not all cases of state formation.
Whatever their deficiencies may be, all these theories properly look to environmental,
demographic, economic, and other down-to-earth factors in particular areas to explain the
origin of early states and civilizations. Some theories for the origin of the state are not nearly
as plausible. This chapter’s “Appreciating Anthropology” casts doubts on certain pseudo-
archaeological theories about the emergence of civilizations, especially those in the Americas.
Early states arose in different places, and for many reasons. In each case, interacting
causes (often comparable ones) magnified each other’s effects. To explain any instance of
state formation, we must search for the specific changes in access to resources and in
regulatory problems that fostered stratification and state machinery. We also must remember
that chiefdoms and states don’t inevitably arise from food production.
Another, the losers had to submit to the winners— they had nowhere else to go.
Conquered villagers could keep their land only if they agreed to pay tribute to their
conquerors. To do this, they had to intensify production, using new techniques to produce
more food. By working harder, they managed to pay tribute while meeting their own
subsistence needs. Villagers brought new areas under cultivation by means of irrigation and
terracing.
Those early inhabitants of the Andes didn’t work harder because they chose to do so.
They were forced to pay tribute, accept political domination, and intensify production by
factors beyond their control. Once established, all these trends accelerated. Population grew,
warfare intensified, and villages eventually were united in chiefdoms. The first states
developed when one chiefdom in a valley conquered the others (Carneiro 1990). Eventually,
different valleys began to fight. The winners brought the losers into growing states and
empires—mature, territorially larger, and expansive systems—which eventually expanded
171
from the coast to the highlands. By the 16th century, from their capital, Cuzco, in the high
Andes, the Inca ruled one of the major empires in the tropics.
Carneiro’s theory is very useful, but again, the association between population
density and state organization is generalized rather than universal. States do tend to have
large and dense populations (Stevenson 1968). However, population increase and warfare
within a circumscribed environment did not trigger state formation in highland Papua New
Guinea. Certain valleys there are socially or physically circumscribed and have population
densities similar to those of many states. Warfare also was present, but no states emerged.
Again, we are dealing with an important theory that explains many but not all cases of state
formation.
Whatever their deficiencies may be, all these theories properly look to environmental,
demographic, economic, and other down-to-earth factors in particular areas to explain the
origin of early states and civilizations. Some theories for the origin of the state are not nearly
as plausible. This chapter’s “Appreciating Anthropology” casts doubts on certain pseudo-
archaeological theories about the emergence of civilizations, especially those in the Americas.
Early states arose in different places, and for many reasons. In each case, interacting
causes (often comparable ones) magnified each other’s effects. To explain any instance of
state formation, we must search for the specific changes in access to resources and in
regulatory problems that fostered stratification and state machinery. We also must remember
that chiefdoms and states don’t inevitably arise from food production.
State Formation in the Middle East
In the last chapter we saw that food production arose in the ancient Middle East
around 10,000 b.p. In the ensuing process of change, the center of population growth shifted
from the zone where wheat and barley grew wild (Hilly Flanks) to adjacent areas (piedmont
steppe) where those grains were first domesticated. By 6000 b.p., population was increasing
most rapidly in the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia. (Mesopotamia refers to the area
between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is now southern Iraq and southwestern Iran.)
This growing population supported itself through irrigation and intensive river valley
agriculture. By 5500 b.p. towns had grown into cities (Gates 2003). The earliest city-states
were Sumer (southern Iraq) and Elam (southwestern Iran), with their capitals at Uruk
(Warka) and Susa, respectively.
Urban Life
The first towns arose around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East. Over the
generations houses of mud brick were built and rebuilt in the same place. Substantial tells or
mounds arose from the debris of a succession of such houses. The Middle East and Asia have
hundreds or thousands of such mounds, only a few of which have been excavated. These sites
have yielded remains of ancient community life, including streets, buildings, terraces,
courtyards, wells, and other artifacts.
The earliest known town was Jericho, located in what is now Israel, below sea level
at a well-watered oasis a few miles northwest of the Dead Sea (Figure 12.2). From the lowest
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(oldest) level, we know that around 11,000 years ago, Jericho was first settled by Natufian
foragers. Occupation continued thereafter, through and beyond biblical times, when “Joshua
fought the battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down” (Laughlin 2006).
During the phase just after the Natufians, the earliest known town appeared. It was an
unplanned, densely populated settlement with round houses and some 2,000 people. At this
time, well before the invention of pottery, Jericho was surrounded by a sturdy wall with a
massive tower. The wall may have been built initially as a flood barrier rather than for
defense. Around 9000 b.p. Jericho was destroyed, to be rebuilt later. The new occupants lived
in square houses with finished plaster floors. They buried their dead beneath their homes, a
pattern seen at other sites, such as Çatal Hüyük in Turkey. Pottery reached Jericho around
8000 b.p. (Gowlett 1993).
Long-distance trade, especially of obsidian, a volcanic glass used to make tools and
ornaments, became important in the Middle East between 9500 and 7000 b.p. One town that
prospered from this trade was Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, Turkey (DeMarco 1997). A grassy
mound 65 feet high holds the remains of this 9,000-year-old town, probably the largest
settlement of the Neolithic age. Çatal Hüyük was located on a river, which deposited rich soil
for crops, created a lush environment for animals, and was harnessed for irrigation by 7000
b.p. Over the mound’s 32 acres (12.9 hectares), up to 10,000 people once lived in crowded
mud-brick houses packed so tight that residents entered from their roofs.
Shielded by a defensive wall, Çatal Hüyük flourished between 8000 and 7000 b.p. Its
individual mud-brick dwellings, rarely larger than a suburban American bedroom, had
separate areas reserved for ritual and secular uses. In a given house, the ritual images (wall
paintings) were placed along the walls that faced north, east, or west, but never south. That
area was reserved for cooking and other domestic tasks.
The ritual spaces were decorated with wall paintings, sculpted ox heads, bullhorns,
and relief models of bulls and rams. The paintings showed bulls surrounded by stick figures
running, dancing, and sometimes throwing stones. Vultures attacked headless humans. One
frieze had human handprints painted below mounted bullhorns. These images and their
placement are reminiscent of Paleolithic cave art. The dwellings at Çatal Hüyük were entered
through the roof, and people had to crawl through holes from room to room, somewhat like
moving between chambers in a cave. The deeper down one went, the richer the art became.
The town’s spiritual life seems to have revolved around a preoccupation with animals, danger,
and death, perhaps related to the site’s recent hunter-gatherer past.
Two or three generations of a family were buried beneath their homes. In one
dwelling, archaeologists found remains of 17 individuals, mostly children. After two or three
generations of family burials, the dwelling was burned. The site was then covered with fine
dirt, and a floor laid for a new dwelling.
Çatal Hüyük’s residents, though living in a town, acted independently in family

groups without any apparent control by a priestly or political elite. The town never became a
full-fledged city with centralized organization. Just as it lacked priests, Çatal Hüyük never
had leaders who controlled or managed trade and production (Fagan 1996). Food was stored
and processed not collectively but on a smaller, domestic scale (DeMarco 1997).
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The Elite Level
The first pottery (ceramics) dates back a bit more than 8,000 years, when it first
reached Jericho. Before that date, the Neolithic is called the pre-pottery Neolithic. By 7000
b.p., pottery had become widespread in the Middle East. Archaeologists consider pottery
shape, finishing, decoration, and type of clay as features used for dating. The geographic
distribution of a given pottery style may indicate trade or alliance spanning a large area at a
particular time.
An early and widespread pottery style, the Halafian, was first found at Tell Halaf in
the mountains of northern Syria. Halafian (7500–6500 b.p.) refers to a delicate ceramic style.
It also describes the period during which the elite level and the first chiefdoms emerged. The
low number of Halafian ceramics suggests they were luxury goods associated with a social
hierarchy.
By 7000 b.p. chiefdoms had emerged in the Middle East. The Ubaid period (7000–
6000 b.p.) is named for a southern Mesopotamian pottery type first discovered at a small site,
Tell el-Ubaid, located near the major city of Ur in southern Iraq. Similar pottery has been
discovered in the deep levels of the Mesopotamian cities of Ur, Uruk, and Eridu. Ubaid
pottery is associated with advanced chiefdoms and perhaps the earliest states. It diffused
rapidly over a large area, becoming more widespread than earlier ceramic styles such as the
Halafian.
Social Ranking and Chiefdoms
It is easy for archaeologists to identify early states. Evidence for state organization
includes monumental architecture, central storehouses, irrigation systems, and written
records. In Mesoamerica, even chiefdoms are easy to detect archaeologically. Ancient
Mexican chiefdoms left behind stone works, such as temple complexes and the huge carved
Olmec heads (see page 272). Mesoamericans also had a penchant for marking their elites with
durable ornaments and prestige goods, including those buried with chiefs and their families.
Early Middle Eastern chiefs were less ostentatious in their use of material markers of
prestige, making their chiefdoms somewhat harder to detect archaeologically (Flannery
1999).
On the basis of the kinds of status distinctions within society, the anthropologist
Morton Fried (1960) divided societies into three types: egalitarian, ranked, and stratified. An
egalitarian society, most typically found among foragers, lacks status distinctions except for
those based on age, gender, and individual qualities, talents, and achievements. Thus,
depending on the society, adult men, elder women, talented musicians, or ritual specialists
might receive special respect for their activities or knowledge. In egalitarian societies, status
distinctions are not usually inherited. The child of a respected person will not receive special
recognition because of his or her parent but must earn such respect.
Ranked societies, in contrast, do have hereditary inequality. But they lack

stratification (sharp social divisions—strata—based on unequal access to wealth and power)
into noble and commoner classes. In ranked societies, individuals tend to be ranked in terms
of their genealogical distance from the chief. Closer relatives of the chief have higher rank or
social status than more distant ones do. But there is a continuum of status, with many
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individuals and kin groups ranked about equally, which can lead to competition for positions
of leadership. Recap 12.1 lists key features and examples of egalitarian, ranked, and stratified
societies.
Not all ranked societies are chiefdoms. Robert Carneiro (1991) has distinguished
between two kinds of ranked societies, only the second of which is a chiefdom. In the first
type, exemplified by some Indians of North America’s Pacific Northwest, there were
hereditary differences in rank among individuals, but villages were independent of one
another and not ranked in relation to each other. Exemplifying the second type were the
Cauca of Colombia and the Natchez of the eastern United States. These ranked societies had
become chiefdoms, societies in which relations among villages as well as among individuals
were unequal. The smaller villages had lost their autonomy and were under the authority of
leaders who lived at larger villages. According to Kent Flannery (1999), only those ranked
societies with such loss of village autonomy should be called chiefdoms. In chiefdoms, there
is always inequality— differences in rank—among both individuals and communities.
In Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, and Peru, chiefdoms were precursors to primary

states (states that arose on their own, not through contact with other state societies—see
Wright 1994). Primary states emerged from competition among chiefdoms, as one chiefdom
managed to conquer its neighbors and to make them part of a larger political unit (Flannery
1995).
Archaeological evidence for chiefdoms in Mesoamerica dates back more than 3,000
years. Mesoamerican chiefdoms are easy to detect archaeologically because they were
flamboyant in the way they marked their aristocracy. High-status families deformed the heads
of their infants and buried them with special symbols and grave goods. In burials, prestige
goods show a continuum from graves with many, to less, to no precious materials, such as
jade and turquoise (Flannery 1999).
The first Middle Eastern states developed between 6000 and 5500 b.p. The first
societies based on rank, including the first chiefdoms, emerged during the preceding 1,500
years. In the Middle East, the archaeological record of the period after 7300 b.p. reveals
behavior typical of chiefdoms, including exotic goods used as markers of status, along with
raiding and political instability. Early Middle Eastern chiefdoms included both the Halafian
culture of northern Iraq and the Ubaid culture of southern Iraq, which eventually spread
north.
As in Mesoamerica, ancient Middle Eastern chiefdoms had cemeteries where chiefly

relatives were buried with distinctive items: vessels, statuettes, necklaces, and high-quality
ceramics. Such goods were buried with children too young to have earned prestige on their
own, who happened to be born into elite families. In the ancient village of Tell es-Sawwan,
infant graves show a continuum of richness from six statuettes, to three statuettes, to one
statuette, to none. Such signs of slight gradations in social status are exactly what one expects
in ranked societies (Flannery 1999).
Such burials convince Flannery (1999) that hereditary status differences were present
in the Middle East by 7000 b.p. But had the leaders of large villages extended their authority
to the smaller villages nearby? Is there evidence for the loss of village autonomy, converting
simple ranked societies into chiefdoms? One clue that villages were linked in political units is
175
the use of a common canal to irrigate several villages. This suggests a way of resolving
disputes among farmers over access to water, for example, by appeal to a strong leader. By
later Halafian times in northern Mesopotamia, there is evidence for such multivillage
alliances (Flannery 1999). Another clue to the loss of village autonomy is the emergence of a
two-tier settlement hierarchy, with small villages clustering around a large village, especially
one with public buildings. There is evidence for this pattern in northern Mesopotamia during
the Halafian (Watson 1983).
Advanced Chiefdoms
In northeastern Syria, near the border with Iraq, archaeologists have been excavating
an ancient settlement that once lay on a major trade route. This large site, Tell Hamoukar,
dates back more than 5,500 years (Wilford 2000). Its remains suggest that advanced
chiefdoms arose in northern areas of the Middle East independently of the better-known city-
states of southern Mesopotamia, in southern Iraq (Wilford 2000).
The oldest layer yet uncovered at Tell Hamoukar contains traces of villages dating
back 6,000 years. By 5700 b.p. the settlement was a prosperous town of 32 acres, enclosed by
a defensive wall 10 feet (3 meters) high and 13 feet (3.9 meters) wide. The site had fine
pottery and large ovens— evidence of food preparation on an institutional scale. The site has
yielded pieces of large cooking pots, animal bones, and traces of wheat, barley, and oats for
baking and brewing. The archaeologist McGuire Gibson, one of the excavators, believes that
food preparation on this scale is evidence of a ranked society in which elites were organizing
people and resources (Wilford 2000). Most likely they were hosting and entertaining in a
chiefly manner.
Also providing evidence for social ranking are the seals used to mark containers of
food and other goods. Some of the seals are small, with only simple incisions or cross-
hatching. Others are larger and more elaborate, presumably for higher officials to stamp more
valuable goods. Gibson suspects the larger seals with figurative scenes were held by the few
people who had greater authority. The smaller, simply incised seals were used by many more
people with less authority (Wilford 2000).
The Rise of the State
In southern Mesopotamia at this time (5700 b.p.), an expanding population and

increased food production from irrigation were changing the social landscape even more
drastically than in the north. Irrigation had allowed Ubaid communities to spread along the
Euphrates River. Travel and trade were expanding, with water serving as the highway system.
Such raw materials as hardwood and stone, which southern Mesopotamia lacked, were
imported via river routes. Population density increased as new settlements appeared. Social
and economic networks now linked communities on the rivers in the south and in the foothills
to the north. Settlements spread north into what is now Syria. Social differentials also
increased. Priests and political leaders joined expert potters and other specialists. These non-
food producers were supported by the larger population of farmers and herders (Gilmore-
Lehne 2000).
Economies were being managed by central leadership. Agricultural villages had

grown into cities, some of which were ruled by local kings. The Uruk period (6000–5200
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b.p.), which succeeded the Ubaid period, takes its name from a prominent southern city-state
located more than 400 miles south of Tell Hamoukar (Recap 12.2). The Uruk period
established Mesopotamia as “the cradle of civilization” (see Pollock 1999). Recap 12.2
highlights archaeological periods in the process of state formation in the ancient Middle East.
There is no evidence of Uruk influence at Tell Hamoukar until 5200 b.p., when some
Uruk pottery showed up. When southern Mesopotamians expanded north, they found
advanced chiefdoms, which were not yet states. The fact that writing originated in Sumer, in
southern Mesopotamia, indicates a more advanced, state-organized society there. The first
writing presumably developed to handle record keeping for a centralized economy.
Writing was initially used to keep accounts, reflecting the needs of trade. Rulers,
nobles, priests, and merchants were the first to benefit from it. Writing had reached Egypt by
5200 b.p., probably from Mesopotamia. The earliest writing was pictographic, for example,
with pictorial symbols of horses used to represent them.
Early Mesopotamian scribes used a stylus (writing implement) to scrawl symbols on

raw clay. This writing left a wedge-shaped impression on the clay, called cuneiform writing,
from the Latin word for wedge. Both the Sumerian (southern Mesopotamia) and Akkadian
(northern Mesopotamia) languages were written in cuneiform (Gowlett 1993).
Writing and temples played key roles in the Mesopotamian economy. For the historic
period after 5600 b.p., when writing was invented, there are temple records of economic
activities. States can exist without writing, but literacy facilitates the flow and storage of
information. We know that Mesopotamian priests managed herding, farming, manufacture,
and trade. Temple officials allotted fodder and pastureland for cattle and donkeys, which were
used as plow and cart animals.
As the economy expanded, trade, manufacture, and grain storage were centrally
managed. Temples collected and distributed meat, dairy products, crops, fish, clothing, tools,
and trade items. Potters, metalworkers, weavers, sculptors, and other artisans perfected their
crafts.
Prior to the invention of metallurgy (knowledge of the properties of metals,

including their extraction and processing and the manufacture of metal tools), raw copper was
shaped by hammering. If copper is hammered too long, it hardens and becomes brittle, with a
risk of cracking. But once heated (annealed) in a fire, copper becomes malleable again. Such
annealing of copper was an early form of metallurgy. A vital step for metallurgy was the
discovery of smelting, the high-temperature process by which pure metal is produced from
an ore. Ores, including copper ore, have a much wider distribution than does native copper,
which was initially traded as a luxury good because of its rarity (Gowlett 1993).
When and how smelting was discovered is unknown. But after 5000 b.p., metallurgy
evolved rapidly. The Bronze Age began when alloys of arsenic and copper, or tin and copper
(in both cases known as bronze), became common and greatly extended the use of metals.
Bronze flows more easily than copper does when heated to a similar temperature, so bronze
was more convenient for metal casting. Early molds were carved in stone, as shaped
depressions to be filled with molten metal. A copper ax cast from such a mold has been found
in northern Mesopotamia and predates 5000 b.p. Thereafter, other metals came into common
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use. By 4500 b.p., golden objects were found in royal burials at Ur.
Iron ore is distributed more widely than is copper ore. Iron, when smelted, can be
used on its own; there is no need for tin or arsenic to make a metal alloy (bronze). The Iron
Age began once high-temperature iron smelting was mastered. In the Old World after 3200
b.p., iron spread rapidly. Formerly valued as highly as gold, iron crashed in value when it
became plentiful (Gowlett 1993).
The Mesopotamian economy, based on craft production, trade, and intensive

agriculture, spurred population growth and an increase in urbanism. Sumerian cities were
protected by a fortress wall and surrounded by a farming area. By 4800 b.p., Uruk, the largest
early Mesopotamian city, had a population of 50,000. As irrigation and the population
expanded, communities fought over water. People sought protection in the fortified cities
(Adams 1981), which defended themselves when neighbors or invaders threatened.
By 4600 b.p., secular authority had replaced temple rule. The office of military
coordinator developed into kingship. This change shows up architecturally in palaces and
royal tombs. The palace raised armies and supplied them with armor, chariots, and metal
armaments. At Ur’s royal cemetery, by 4600 b.p. monarchs were being buried with soldiers,
charioteers, and ladies in waiting. These subordinates were killed at the time of a royal burial
to accompany the monarch to the afterworld.
Agricultural intensification made it possible for the number of people supported by a

given area to increase. Population pressure on irrigated fields helped create a stratified
society. Land became scarce private property that was bought and sold. Some people amassed
large estates, and their wealth set them off from ordinary farmers. These landlords joined the
urban elite, while sharecroppers and serfs toiled in the fields. By 4600 b.p., Mesopotamia had
a well-defined class structure, with complex stratification into nobles, commoners, and
slaves.
Other Early States
In northwestern India and Pakistan, the Indus River Valley (or Harappan) state, with
major cities at Harappa and Mohenjodaro, takes its name from the river valley along which it
extended. (Figure 12.3 maps the four great early river valley states of the Old World:
Mesopotamia, Egypt, India/Pakistan, and northern China.) Trade and the spread of writing
from Mesopotamia may have played a role in the emergence of the Harappan state around
4600 b.p. Located in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, the ruins of Harappa were the first to be
identified as part of the Indus River Valley civilization. At its peak, the Indus River Valley
state incorporated 1,000 cities, towns, and villages, spanning 280,000 square miles (725,000
square kilometers). This state flourished between 4600 and 3900 b.p. It displayed such
features of state organization as urban planning, social stratification, and an early writing
system, which remains undeciphered. The Harappans maintained a uniform system of
weights, and their cites had carefully planned residential areas with wastewater systems. An
array of products from sophisticated craft industries included ceramic vessels made on
potter’s wheels (Meadow and Kenoyer 2000).
The Indus River Valley state collapsed, apparently through warfare, around 3900 b.p.
Its cities became largely depopulated. Skeletons of massacre victims have been found in the
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streets of Mohenjodaro. Harappa continued to be occupied, but on a much smaller scale than
previously (Meadow and Kenoyer 2000). (For more on the ongoing Harappa Archaeological
Research Project, visit http://www.harappa.com.)
The first Chinese state, dating to 3750 b.p., was that of the Shang dynasty. It arose in
the Huang He (Yellow) River area of northern China, where wheat, rather than rice, was the
dietary staple. This state was characterized by urbanism, palatial (as well as domestic)
architecture, human sacrifice, and a sharp division between social classes. Burials of the
aristocracy were marked by ornaments of stone, including jade. The Shang had bronze
metallurgy and an elaborate writing system. In warfare they used chariots and took prisoners
(Gowlett 1993).
Like Mesopotamia and China, many early civilizations came to rely on metallurgy. At
Nok Nok Tha in northern Thailand, metalworking goes back 6,000 years. In Peru’s Andes,
whose astonishing system of suspension bridges is described in this chapter ‘s “Appreciating
Diversity,” metal-working appeared around 4000 b.p. Ancient Andeans were skilled not only
in using natural fibers to make bridges but also in working with bronze, copper, and gold.
They are well known, too, for their techniques of pottery manufacture. Their arts, crafts, and
agricultural knowledge compared well with those of Mesoamerica at its height, to which we
turn after a discussion of African states. Note that both Mesoamerican and Andean state
formation were truncated by Spanish conquest. The Aztecs of Mexico were conquered in
1519 c.e., and the Inca of Peru in 1532 c.e.
African States
Egypt, a major ancient civilization, developed in northern Africa, as one of the

world’s first states (Morkot 2005). Egyptian influence extended southward along the Nile into
what is now Sudan. Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed the emergence of several states (Hooker
1996), only a few of which can be described here.
As in the other world areas just discussed, metallurgy (especially iron and gold)
played a role in the eventual rise of African states (Connah 2004). About 2,000 years ago,
iron smelting began to diffuse rapidly throughout the continent. That spread was aided by the
migrations of Bantu speakers. (Bantu is Africa’s largest linguistic family.) The Bantu
migrations, launched from north-central Africa around 2100 b.p., continued for more than a
thousand years. Bantu speakers migrated south into the rain forests of the Congo River and
east into the African highlands. Along with their language and iron-smelting techniques, they
also spread farming, particularly of high-yielding crops such as yams, bananas, and plantains.
One crowning achievement of the Bantu migrations was the Mwenemutapa empire.
The southeast-moving ancestors of the Mwenemutapa brought iron smelting and farming to
the region called Zimbabwe, south of the Zambezi River and located within the contemporary
nation of the same name. This area was rich in gold, which the Mwenemutapa mined and
traded with the city of Sofala on the Indian Ocean, starting around 1000 c.e. (1000 b.p.). The
Mwenemutapa developed a powerful kingdom based on trade. The first centralized state there
was Great Zimbabwe (zimbabwe means “stone enclosure”— the capital was protected by
huge stone walls), which arose around 1300 c.e. (700 b.p.). By 1500, Great Zimbabwe
dominated the Zambezi Valley militarily and commercially as the seat of the Mwenemutapa
empire.
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Another African region where states arose, also abetted by trade, was the Sahel, the
area just south of the Sahara in western Africa. Farming towns started appearing in the Sahel
around 2600 b.p. One such town, Kumbi Saleh, eventually became the capital of the ancient
kingdom of Ghana. West Africa was rich in gold, precious metals, ivory, and other resources,
which after 750 c.e. (1250 b.p.) were traded (thanks to the camel) across the Sahara to North
Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East. Cities in the Sahel served as southern terminal points for
the trans-Saharan trade (e.g., of gold for salt). Several kingdoms developed in this area:
Ghana, Mali, Songhay, and Kanem-Bornu, together known as the Sahelian kingdoms, of
which Ghana was the first. By 1000 b.p. Ghana’s economic vitality, based on the trans-
Saharan trade, was supporting an empire formed through the conquest of local chiefdoms,
from which tribute was extracted.
States also arose in the forested region of western Africa south of the Sahel. Between
1000 and 1500 c.e., local farming villages started consolidating into larger units, which
eventually became centralized states. The largest and most enduring of these states was
Benin, in what is now southern Nigeria. Benin, which thrived in the 15th century c.e. (600–
500 b.p.), is known for its artistic creativity, expressed in terra-cotta, ivory, and brass
sculpture. Benin art became one of the most influential African art traditions.
State Formation in Mesoamerica
In the last chapter we examined the independent inventions of farming in the Middle
East and Mesoamerica. The processes of state formation that took place in these areas were
also comparable, beginning with ranked societies and chiefdoms, and ending with fully
formed states and empires.
The first monumental buildings (temple complexes) in the Western Hemisphere were
constructed by Mesoamerican chiefdoms in many areas, from the Valley of Mexico to
Guatemala. These chiefdoms influenced one another as they traded materials, such as
obsidian, shells, jade, and pottery. (Figure 12.4 maps major sites in the emergence of
Mesoamerican food production, chiefdoms, and states.)
Early Chiefdoms and Elites
The Olmec built a series of ritual centers on Mexico’s southern Gulf Coast between
3,200 and 2,500 years ago. Three of these centers, each from a different century, are known.
Earthen mounds were grouped into plaza complexes, presumably for religious use. Such
centers show that Olmec chiefs could marshal human labor to construct such mounds. The
Olmec were also master sculptors; they carved massive stone heads, perhaps as images of
their chiefs or their ancestors.
There is evidence, too, that trade routes linked the Olmec with other parts of
Mesoamerica, such as the Oaxaca Valley in the southern highlands and the Valley of Mexico
(see Figure 12.4). By 3000 b.p. a ruling elite had emerged in Oaxaca. The items traded at that
time between Oaxaca and the Olmec were for elite consumption. High-status Oaxacans wore
ornaments made of mussel shells from the coast. In return, the Olmec elite imported mirrors
and jade made by Oaxacan artisans. Chiefdoms in Oaxaca developed canal and well
irrigation, exported magnetite mirrors, and were precocious in their use of adobes (mud
bricks), stucco, stone masonry, and architecture. Chiefdoms in the Olmec area farmed river
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levees, built mounds of earth, and carved colossal stone heads.
The Olmec are famous for their huge carved stone heads, but other early Mexican
chiefdoms also had accomplished artists and builders, using adobes and lime plaster and
constructing stone buildings, precisely oriented 8 degrees north of east.
The period between 3200 and 3000 b.p. was one of rapid social change in Mexico.
All or almost all of Mesoamerica’s chiefdoms were linked by trade and exchange. Many
competing chiefly centers were concentrating labor power, intensifying agriculture,
exchanging trade goods, and borrowing ideas, including art motifs and styles, from each
other. Archaeologists now believe it was the intensity of competitive interaction—rather than
the supremacy of any one chiefdom—that made social change so rapid. The social and
political landscape of Mexico around 3000 b.p. was one in which 25 or so chiefly centers
were (1) sufficiently separate and autonomous to adapt to local zones and conditions and (2)
sufficiently interactive and competitive to borrow and incorporate new ideas and innovations
as they arose in other regions (Flannery and Marcus 2000).
It used to be thought that a single chiefdom could become a state on its own.
Archaeologists know now that state formation involves one chiefdom’s incorporating several
others into the emerging state it controls, and making changes in its own infrastructure as it
acquires and holds on to new territories, followers, and goods. Warfare and attracting
followers are two key elements in state formation. Recall that this chapter’s “Appreciating
Anthropology” on pp. 260–261 debunks popular pseudo-archaeological theories about the
origin of Mesoamerican civilization.
Many chiefdoms have dense populations, intensive agriculture, and settlement

hierarchies that include hamlets, villages, and perhaps towns. These factors pave the way for
greater social and political complexity. Political leaders emerge, and military success (in
raiding) often solidifies their position. Such figures attract lots of followers, who are loyal to
their leader. Warfare enables leaders to incorporate new lands and people. Success in warfare
leads to states’ becoming even more densely occupied and in control of new lands. States, in
contrast to chiefdoms, can acquire labor and land and hold on to them. States have armies,
warfare, developed political hierarchies, law codes, and military force, which can be used in
fact or as a threat.
Olmec and Oaxaca were just two among many flamboyant early Mexican chiefdoms
that once thrived in the area from the Valley of Mexico to Guatemala. Oaxaca went on to
develop a state a bit earlier than the Teotihuacán state in the Valley of Mexico. Oaxaca and
other highland areas came to overshadow the Olmec area and the Mesoamerican lowlands in
general. By 2500 b.p., Oaxaca’s Zapotec people had developed a distinctive art style,
perfected at their capital city of Monte Albán (see Blanton 1999; Marcus and Flannery 1996).
Warfare and State Formation: The Zapotec Case
Warfare often plays a key role in primary state formation. The first Mesoamerican
state, Zapotec had developed in Mexico’s Valley of Oaxaca by the start of the Common Era
(c.e.—formerly a.d.). The city of Monte Albán served as capital of this Zapotec polity
(political unit, such as a chiefdom or a state) for twelve hundred years, between 500 b.c.e. and
700 c.e. (The Zapotec polity was a chiefdom from ca. 500 b.c.e. to 100 b.c.e., and after that a
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state). Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus (2003b) describe the archaeological evidence for
changing warfare patterns in Oaxaca—from early raiding among sedentary villages to
warfare aimed at conquest between 330 and 20 b.c.e. (formerly b.c.).
The oldest defensive palisade in the Valley of Oaxaca dates to 3260–3160 b.p., just a
few centuries after village life was established there (see Chapter 11). Over the next
millennium, raiding evolved into war, with homes and temples burned, captives killed, and
populations relocating to defensible hills. A monument from the site of San José Mogote,
dating no later than 2510 b.p. (560 b.c.e.), is the earliest reliably dated monument with
writing in Mesoamerica. It depicts a named, sacrificed captive, likely a rival chief and a
probable victim of inter-village raiding. Armed conflict in Oaxaca thus began as raiding, with
killing, burning, and captive taking but no permanent acquisition of territory. By the time the
Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, the Zapotec-speaking inhabitants of the
Valley of Oaxaca (no longer centered at Monte Albán) had armies with noble officers and
commoner foot soldiers. They waged wars that exacted tribute from conquered territories
(Flannery and Marcus 2003b).
The shift from raiding to warfare aimed at territorial conquest occurred prior to 300
b.c.e. This shift is documented not only by hieroglyphs but also by survey and excavation in
areas that were targets of Monte Albán’s expansionistic designs. As Charles Spencer (2003)
notes of Oaxaca, evidence for the earliest conquest warfare occurs simultaneously with
evidence for emerging state organization. This correlation supports the idea of a causal link
between conquest warfare and state formation.
Long ago, Henry Wright (1977) described the state as a society with not only a
centralized but also an internally specialized, administrative organization—a bureaucracy.
Chiefdoms, by contrast, lack administrative specialization. States have at least four levels of
decision making (Wright 1977). The center or capital establishes subsidiary administrative
centers. The result is a nested lattice of secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary centers.
Population size tends to follow this administrative structure: States typically have at least a
four-level hierarchy of settlements according to both administrative functions and population
size. Chiefdoms have no more than three levels (Spencer 2003).
To expand, a state must send delegates, such as soldiers, governors, and other
officials, to subjugate and rule in distant territories. Lacking a group of bureaucrats,
chiefdoms can’t do this, which means that the geographic range of chiefly authority is smaller
than in a state. According to Spencer (2003), the limit of a chiefdom’s range is half a day’s
travel from its center. States, however, can transcend such limits and carry out long-distance
conquests. Archaeological evidence for conquest warfare includes burned and abandoned
villages, specialized forts and administrative outposts, and forced changes in the economic,
social, and religious behaviors of subjugated peoples.
Expansion through conquest can play a key role in the formation of a primary state
by building the administrative hierarchy. Subjugation of polities in other regions, coupled
with regularized tribute exaction, can bring about a transition from chiefdom to state (Spencer
2003). For such a strategy to succeed (especially when the conquered polities lie more than a
half-day’s trip away), the leadership will have to dispatch agents to the conquered areas.
Generals and bureaucrats are needed not only to carry out the subjugation but also to maintain
long-term control and to manage tribute collection. Given its need to rely on distant
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representatives, the central leadership promotes internal administrative specialization and
loyalty (and thus bureaucratic proliferation). Tribute provides new resources to support this
administrative transformation. Archaeological data from Oaxaca confirm that the conquest of
distant polities and bureaucratic growth were integral parts of the process of Zapotec primary
state formation.
Typically, state bureaucracies occupy a group of administrative buildings, especially

at the capital. Surrounding the Main Plaza at Monte Albán were specialized buildings,
including palaces, temples, and ball courts. Of these, the palace is an especially useful
diagnostic of state organization. Hieroglyphs on a building in Monte Albán’s Main Plaza
record the bringing of outlying areas under Monte Albán’s control, often by conquest. There
is archaeological evidence at Cañada de Cuicatlán (a two-day walk north of Monte Albán) for
Zapotec conquest around 300 b.c.e. Evidence of outright colonization has been found in the
Sola Valley, a two-day walk southwest of Monte Albán. The Zapotec also claimed control of
the Tututepec area on Oaxaca’s Pacific coast.
Monte Albán did not expand its rule in a gradual, concentric fashion. Although it
managed to subjugate distant regions to the north, west, and southwest by approximately 300
b.c.e., certain areas to the east and south managed to resist for centuries. For example, Monte
Albán attacked and burned its chief local rival, San Martín Tilcajete, only a day’s travel to the
south, around 330 b.c.e., but the local inhabitants refused to capitulate. They rebuilt their
community and constructed defensive walls at a higher location, El Palenque. These people
continued to resist Monte Albán until roughly 20 b.c.e., when they finally were conquered.
Evidence for co-occurrence of Monte Albán’s conquest strategy with the emerging
Zapotec state offers strong support for the expansionist model of primary state formation.
That state had formed by 30–20 b.c.e., with a four-tier, site-size settlement hierarchy: royal
palaces and two-room state temples. Monte Albán built its own secondary administrative
center on a hilltop above the ruins of El Palenque (Elson 2007). After centuries of dominating
the region, Monte Albán eventually lost its central role as capital. After 700 c.e., the Zapotec
state dissolved into a series of smaller centers or principalities—alternately vying for
supremacy through continued warfare and forming peaceful alliances through marriage
(Flannery and Marcus 2003a; Marcus 1989). (Figure 12.5 locates the Valley of Oaxaca and
the sites discussed here.)
States in the Valley of Mexico
During the first century c.e., the Valley of Mexico, located in the highlands where
Mexico City now stands, came to prominence in Mesoamerican state formation. In this large
valley, Teotihuacán flourished between 1900 and 1300 b.p. (100 and 700 c.e.).
The Valley of Mexico is a large basin surrounded by mountains. The valley has rich
volcanic soils, but rainfall isn’t always reliable. The northern part of the valley, where the
huge city and state of Teotihuacán eventually arose, is colder and drier than the south. Frosts
there limited farming until quick-growing varieties of maize were developed. Until 2500 b.p.,
most people lived in the warmer and wetter southern part of the valley, where rainfall made
farming possible. After 2500 b.p., new maize varieties and small-scale irrigation appeared.
Population increased and began to spread north.
By 1 c.e. Teotihuacán was a town of 10,000 people. It governed a territory of a few
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thousand square kilometers and perhaps 50,000 people (Parsons 1974). Teotihuacán’s growth
reflected its agricultural potential. Perpetual springs permitted irrigation of a large alluvial
plain. Rural farmers supplied food for the growing urban population.
By this time, a clear settlement hierarchy had emerged. This is a ranked series of
communities that differ in size, function, and building types. The settlements at the top of the
hierarchy were political and religious centers. Those at the bottom were rural villages. We
have seen that a four-level settlement hierarchy provides archaeological evidence of state
organization (Wright and Johnson 1975).
Along with state organization at Teotihuacán went large-scale irrigation, status

differentiation, and complex architecture. Teotihuacán thrived between 100 and 700 c.e.. It
grew as a planned city built on a grid pattern, with the Pyramid of the Sun at its center. By
500 c.e. the population of Teotihuacan had reached 130,000, making it larger than imperial
Rome. Farmers were one of its diverse specialized groups, along with artisans, merchants,
and political, religious, and military personnel.
After 700 c.e. Teotihuacán declined in size and power. By 900 c.e. its population had
shrunk to 30,000. Between 900 and 1200 c.e., the Toltec period, the population scattered, and
small cities and towns sprang up throughout the valley. People also left the Valley of Mexico
to live in larger cities—like Tula, the Toltec capital—on its edge (see Figure 12.4).
Population increase (including immigration by the ancestors of the Aztecs) and urban
growth returned to the Valley of Mexico between 1200 and 1520 c.e. During the Aztec period
(1325–1520 c.e.) there were several cities, the largest of which— Tenochtitlán, the capital—
may have surpassed Teotihuacán at its height. A dozen Aztec towns had more than 10,000
people. Fueling this population growth was intensification of agriculture, particularly in the
southern part of the valley, where the drainage of lake bottoms and swamps added new
cultivable land (Parsons 1976).
Another factor in the renaissance of the Valley of Mexico was trade. Local
manufacture created products for a series of markets. The major towns and markets were
located on the lake shores, with easy access to canoe traffic. The Aztec capital stood on an
island in the lake. In Tenochtitlán, the production of luxury goods was more prestigious and
more highly organized than that of pottery making, basket making, and weaving. Luxury
producers, such as stone workers, feather workers, and gold and silversmiths, occupied a
special position in Aztec society. The manufacture of luxury goods for export was an
important part of the economy of the Aztec capital (Hassig 1985; Santley 1985).
Why States Collapse
States can be fragile and decomposable, falling apart along the same cleavage lines
(e.g., regional political units) that were forged together to form the state originally. Various
factors could threaten their economies and political institutions. Invasion, disease, famine, or
prolonged drought could upset the balance. A state’s citizens might harm the environment,
usually with economic costs. For example, farmers and smelters might cut down trees. Such
deforestation promotes erosion and leads to a decline in the water supply. Overuse of land
may deplete the soil of the nutrients needed to grow crops.
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If factors such as irrigation help create states to begin with, does their decline or
failure explain the fall of the state? Irrigation does have costs as well as benefits. In ancient
Mesopotamia, irrigation water came from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Because sediment
(silt) had accumulated in those rivers, their beds were higher than the alluvial plain and fields
they irrigated. Canals channeled river water as it flowed down into the fields by gravity. As
the water evaporated, water-borne mineral salts remained in the fields, eventually creating a
poisonous environment for plants.
Mashkan-shapir, for example, was a Mesopotamian city located about 20 miles from
the Tigris, to which it was connected by a network of canals. This city was abandoned just 20
years after it was settled. Destruction of its fields by mineral salts seems to have been a prime
factor in its collapse (see Annenberg/CPB Exhibits 2000 at
http://www.learner.org/exhibits/collapse/ mesopotamia.html).
The Maya Decline
Generations of scholars have debated the decline of classic Maya civilization around
900 c.e. Classic Maya culture, featuring several competing states, flourished between 300 and
900 c.e. (1700–1100 b.p.) in parts of what are now Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Belize. The ancient Maya are known for their monuments (temples and
pyramids), calendars, mathematics, and hieroglyphic writing.
Archaeological clues to Maya decline have been found at Copán, in western

Honduras. This classic Maya royal center, the largest site in the southeastern part of the Maya
area, covered 29 acres (11.7 hectares). It was built on an artificial terrace overlooking the
Copán River. Its rulers inscribed their monuments with accounts of their coronation, their
lineage history, and reports of important battles. The Maya dated their monuments with the
names of kings and when they reigned. One monument at Copán was intended to be the
ruler’s throne platform, but only one side had been finished. The monument bears a date, 822
c.e., in a section of unfinished text. Copán has no monuments with later dates. The site
probably was abandoned by 830 c.e.
Environmental factors implicated in Copán’s demise may have included erosion and
soil exhaustion due to overpopulation and over-farming. Over-farming contributes to
deforestation and erosion. Hillside farmhouses in particular had debris from erosion—
probably caused by over-farming of the hillsides. This erosion began as early as 750 c.e.—
until these farm sites were abandoned, with some eventually buried by erosion debris. For the
classic Maya in general, William Sanders (1972, 1973) has attributed state decline to over-
farming, leading to environmental degradation through grass invasion and erosion.
Food stress and malnutrition were clearly present at Copán, where 80 percent of the
buried skeletons display signs of anemia, due to iron deficiency. One skull shows anemia
severe enough to have been the cause of death. Even the nobility were malnourished. One
noble skull, known to be such from its carved teeth and cosmetic deformation, also has
telltale signs of anemia: spongy areas at its rear (Annenberg/CPB Exhibits 2000).
Just as the origins of states, and their causes, are diverse, so are the reasons for state
decline.
185
The Maya state was not as powerful as was once assumed; it was fragile and
vulnerable. Increased warfare and political competition destabilized many of its dynasties and
governments. Archaeologists now stress the role of warfare in Maya state decline.
Hieroglyphic texts document increased warfare among many Maya cities. From the period
just before the collapse, there is archaeological evidence for increased concern with
fortifications (moats, ditches, walls, and palisades) and moving to defensible locations.
Archaeologists have evidence of the burning of structures, the projectile points from spears,
and some of the bodies of those killed. Some sites were abandoned, with the people fleeing
into the forests to occupy perishable huts. (Copán, as we have seen, was depopulated after
822 c.e.) Archaeologists now believe that social, political, and military upheaval and
competition had as much as or more to do with the Maya decline and abandonment of cities
as did natural environmental factors (Marcus, personal communication).
Formerly archaeologists tended to explain state origin and decline mainly in terms of
natural environmental factors, such as climate change, habitat destruction, and demographic
pressure (see Weiss 2005). Archaeologists now see state origins and declines more fully—in
social and political terms—because we can read the texts. And the Maya texts document
competition and warfare between dynasties jockeying for position and power. Warfare was
indeed a creator and a destroyer of ancient chiefdoms and states.
What’s its role in our own?
186
E Museums of Anthropology or Museums as Anthropology
SUSAN M. PEARCE
During 1995 the Pitt Rivers Museum, one of the Oxford University museums,
produced and marketed a surprising piece of merchandise. It sells in the ordinary way in the
museum’s gift shop and it costs only 25p (approx. 15¢). The object is a standard postcard, but
it depicts a selection of 14 early handwritten museum labels from the Pitt Rivers’
documentation archive. This represents an extraordinary piece of self-reflection, not least
because it is cast in the form of a cheap commercial piece, intended either as a basic souvenir
or as the medium for brief, open, interpersonal communication of the “please meet the 4:30”
variety. This paper is devoted to teasing out the significance of the postcard.
The situation at the Pitt Rivers (and at every other museum) can be captured by the
analysis given in Figure 1. This shows the sequence of events over the last century or so as a
series of interrelated action sets, each of which stands in a relationship to all those which
preceded it. There is a relationship between the sets, because in each segment of the sequence
the objects themselves remain the same and continue to offer opportunities for re-appraisal.
But each re-appraisal, numbered 2–4 in the figure, positions the objects differently in relation
to each other and to other objects and so creates a new context with a new meaning. The
relationship between the segments, following (one strand of) normal semiotic usage can be
called metaphorical, in contrast to the perceived intrinsic relationship of the material within
the sets.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider the colonial societies from which the
objects whose labels are shown on the postcard were taken. We shall, how•ever, need to look
at the nature of collecting, particularly the collecting represented on the Pitt Rivers card. We
shall need to consider how the material has been treated curatorially within the museum; and
finally we must reflect upon ironic, postmodernist, or postcolonial, activity to which the
postcard belongs, and how this may strike the visiting public, who come at the end of the long
line of metaphors because their contact with the material is the final segment in what has
already been a long and complex sequence of events. But first, we must put all these
considerations into context by glancing at the genealogy of the museum.
Figure 1. Diagram Representing the Metaphorical Relationships of the Process of Material

Culture from Its Own Society to that of the Museum-visiting Public
1 2 3 4 5
Contemporary Contemporary
Indigenous self•reflecting visitors who see
community at a Collectors’ and parodying, the earlier
time when donation to the
The collectors ironic displays and
objects Pitt Rivers
and post•colonial the
collected with Museums; the
their colonial museum contemporary
all its own objects’
(actual or activity irony in
complexities accession,
implicit lifestyle postcard, juxtaposition,
and ironies: curation and artist’s and may buy
colonial society display
residence the postcard
187
The Genealogy of the Museum
Recent work based upon the social analysis of Foucault and his successors (Bennett,
1995; Hooper-Greenhill, 1992) has made us understand how the museum as an institution was
part and parcel of each successive manifestation of modes of understanding, those modes
which Foucault calls the episteme, during the period from about AD 1400 to the present
postmodernism. This has the effect of taking special authority away from the museum, or any
other institution, and replacing it with a rhetorical mode in which each museum is charged
with the necessity to explain itself and make the public case for the value of whatever it
thinks it has to offer. The truth of these assertions, however, does not detract from the
“objective” fact of the weight of history which such institutions embody. Since we are,
individually and collectively, endowed with the power to experience and to remember
experience, no matter how much this is rewritten in the process, we cannot escape the
accumulation of past context which creates present character.
For museums, the basis of authority is the power to arbitrate upon material culture, to
decide what is “valuable” or “interesting” and what is not, to endeavor toad the former to the
museum’s holdings, and to construct it into meaningful patterns, which, of course, reinforce
the estimable quality of the original decisions. We should not forget that “decide” carries the
sense of “to cut out, or to cut away”: the good is top-sliced and the dross finds it own level.
Overall, therefore, we can perceive a cycle of / material meaning / museum as

institution / power / popular respect / power / ability to define material meaning / which is
self-fulfilling, and which draws its strength from cultural traits of the long term. Most of the
material objects within the system have arrived there either by inheritance from earlier
comparable institutions, or (the majority) by gifts from those who see themselves as holding a
particular relationship with the meaning•defining institution. In this network of significancies,
the Pitt Rivers has an important, indeed almost excessive, place, but in essence what it is and
does is repeated in every museum of anthropology and of everything else.
The Collectors
For some collectors happiness is a feeling of harmony between their private

valuations of what they have gathered together and public perceptions of value, represented
by exactly the cycle of institutional power which we have just outlined (although for other
collectors, it is tension which provides the thrills). A range of surveys and studies (Pearce,
1995: 159–170; 1998) have shown how collectors privately regard their material as extensions,
or even completions, of themselves. Within their inner lives they see their objects possessed
of transforming power which can represent themselves to themselves, and to the outer world;
collections are a way of living with chaos and turning it into sense.
Figure 2 represents this process in schematic formby suggesting the major

dimensions within which each individual life is led. Collections encapsulate memories and
reconnect us to the momentous moments in our lives: travel, wedding, and recovery from
illness. Collections order space, both literally in our homes, and figuratively in our minds,
through the spatial and intellectual patterns which they assume. We love our material, but
sometimes “the collection takes over” as collectors say, and dominates our lives. We can play
about with our own material as we can with few things in our lives, and decide for ourselves
how to create closures. We can work through our notions of gender, and use our collections
188
as a way of creating ourselves more as we would wish to be. Above all, for the purposes of
this discussion, collectors can hope to give, or bequeath, their collections to accredited
museums, and so achieve a material immortality which is denied to humans. This, of course,
is only possible if the material is deemed by curators as being of “museum quality,” and so
arises the importance of the coincidence of the public and private systems.
Four named
collectors are recorded in
the labels on the Pitt Rivers
postcard, with the dates of
their donation: Dr. E.T.
Wilson (1909), J.P.Mills
(1928), Miss M.A. Murray
(1926) and A. Combs
(1907). Of the other labels,
one tells us its object (the
nose clip) was purchased in
1926, while the rest simply
carry a description and a
cultural location.
Noticeably, if an object was
purchased, rather than
C
freely gifted, the original
owner is not considered
worthy of recall. The other
collectorless objects were
also, we presume, acquired
in ways which deviated
from the honourable norm
of donation.
The collectors
include one obvious
professional man (the
DEPED
doctor) and one man (Combs), who is given the honorific suffix “Esq(uire),” still a
meaningful distinction in 1907 when it is likely to imply a gentleman without a profession
living on his own means. We have no direct clue to Mills’s occupational though it is likely
that he was a member of one of the colonial services. One of the four is a woman, a fairly
probable proportion in such a company, but she is the only member of the group who made
any mark on the broader history of anthropology.
Margaret Alice Murray gave much of her life to the study of European witchcraft,
publishing her important The Witch-Cult in Western Europe in 1921, and her notorious The
God of the Witches and The Divine King in England in 1933 and 1936. Before and after this she
was a serious Egyptologist as, as she herself says, W.M. Flinders Petrie’s fellow-worker for
many years at University College, London (Murray, 1949 [1962]: 255). In 1949
Sidgwick and Jackson published her The Splendour that Was Egypt as a volume in the famous
series which included The Glory that Was Greece by J. Stodart. Her gift of the English witch
bottle was a characteristic one.
189
The majority of the dates on the labels cluster in the 1900s and 1920s (1907, 1909,
1909, 1926, 1926, 1928). Inspite of the fact that the watershed of the First WorldWar lies
between these two decades, the mind-set of the establishment, particularly of the middle-
ranking members of its imperial services, remained relatively little changed. These generally
subscribed wholeheartedly to the traditional value system and its institutions, without
noticing the self-reference this involved. The inner psychology of their collecting, therefore,
coincided with the overt judgments of their society, in ways which confirmed both men and
institutions. They had maintained British standards in savage parts of the world (including the
savagery of darkest Sussex from whence came the witch bottle) and the trophies which they
brought back as evidence of battles fought and won were accepted into the permanent
collections of the most important anthropological museum in one of the two most prestigious
universities in the country.
Curation and Display
Once material has been received into the museum, it has achieved the official
imprimatur of value and significance conveyed by the institution and its curatorial
complement. It, and by inference its collectors, has joined the charmed circle of power and
authority, and henceforth it will be treated in ways which make its meaning manifest,
meaning which is thought of as “inherent” and “natural” but which is, in fact, a matter for
deliberation and contrivance on the part of thecurators.
The most intimate link between the object and the curator is the label, especially the
handwritten label, which will remain physically tied to the piece as long as they both may
live, and which bears the individual, and easily recognized, mark of its creator. Handwritten
labels easily attain relic status, the museum’s equivalent of the nail clippings or locks of hair
through which past masters in other sacred institutions are revered, and recognized as still
living amongst us. Such labels become museum material in their own right, preserved as
carefully as other specimens, ostensibly for the information which they contain, but in fact
equally for the contact with the great men of the past which they offer and the sense of the
chain of living continuity which they embody: such things are important in the construction
of authority and bring consoling comfort and support to each latter-day generation of
curators.
The labels on the Pitt Rivers postcard are all handwritten, and show at least seven
different hands. All are written in black ink which has scarcely faded at all, witness to the dim
and secure conditions in which they have been kept. All are written on white cards, which in
some cases have turned biscuit-coloured and started to show traces of foxing, like a preserved
water colour or artist’s print might do. The labels are of various sizes and of two main shapes:
round, and rectangular with the two front corners cut off to form a typical luggage label
shape, redolent to the standard fittings of the contemporary pigskin suitcases which once
travelled by P & O and the Blue Train. Each card is securely held within a silver-metal
binding which is folded down on both side so fits edge, an operation obviously performed by
one of those stamping machines which displayed its innards of rugged wheels and cogs. As
Julian Walker, a museum installation artist, has so aptly remarked (personal communication),
these label borders seem intended to keep the “goodness” in and infection out, a notion which
the original owners of the pieces, as participants in societies where notions of purity and
containment were the norm, would have understood and welcomed. Each card is also pierced
with a small round hole, so that it may be secured to its object with a piece of string.
190
Together, the binary star of object and label sit on display, and together they make
meaning. To the viewer, the label is not the lesser of the partnership. If the label tells us that
this is the rifle with which Kennedy was shot, then it is telling us to invest our attention span
and ask questions like: The only rifle? Who held it? If the label simply describes the same
gun as a particular make of rifle, then it will not detain most of us. There clearly is a sense in
which the object comes to illustrate the label and not the other way round, just as the history
of curatorship is written in the labels which practitioners have left behind them. In other
words, the label, as well as the specimen, has the status of museum artefact.
Of the 14 labels on the postcard, nine can be read in whole or large part. Three
describe broadly medical practices in exotic parts; the rest describe witchcraft and magic and
of these two are English and the rest exotic.
This cultural stretch is an interesting intervention on the part of the card’s editor; but
it is justified by the museum’s collection as a whole in which European material is better
represented than many people suppose. One of the medical labels reads “CHINESE
hypodermic syringe home-made from thimbles etc. Pres. by A. Combs Esq. 1907”; the
second has “Protecting-cap for a sore toe MARING (OLD KUKI), LAMLONG village,
MANIPUR, Dse., 1927 d.d. J.P. Mills 1928”; and the third “S.INDIA, MADRAS,
TUTICORIN Nostril clip used by Arab pearl divers in India and Ceylon to stop breathing
Purch. 1926”. The texts have a staccato, dislocated feel, which appeal equally to low humour,
sore toes, nostril clip, homemade from thimbles—and to a taste for the exotic—
Chinese, pearl divers and MARING (OLD KUKI), LAMLONG, MANIPUR - faraway places
with strange-sounding names, wherever they maybe.
Three of the witchcraft and magic labels refer to “Charm used to cause death of
enemy, Isabel Is, Solomon Islands,” “Worn by traders in salt to avert sickness on the journey”
and “ring given by Russian priest at Fort Wrangell to the uncle of Kootay, the first HAIDA
devil•doctor at MASSET.” We notice how specific these are in unhelpful ways, with their
detailed record of individual and place and the complete lack of any serious exegesis of the
object. This is demonstrated even more clearly by an English member of the group “‘iron
razor’ used by sailors for the ceremony of ‘crossing the line.’ ENGLISH.” This is quite
incomprehensible if you do not know (as many of the younger generation do not) that English
ships made a ritual of crossing the Equator which involved “King Neptune” and his sailors
lathering up those men (including passengers) who had not crossed the line before with a
filthy mixture of grease and oil and then shaving them with the “razor,” in its way, an
interesting rite of passage which links together extensive sailing, the need to start
shaving and male adulthood. Obviously, similar narratives lie behind the other,
equally impenetrable, labels. The remaining two witchcraft labels have much larger texts. The
first, which does not credit a donor, reads, “Night-horse. By mounting this a member of the
Mbatsav secret society gains invisibility and can travel far at night, kill
an enemy and return. TIV (MUNSHI), WUKARI divisn. BENUEPROV.N.
NIGERIA.” The second reads “Silvered & stoppered bottle, said to contain a witch. Obtained
about 1915 from an old lady living in a village near HOVE, SUSSEX. She remarked ‘and they
do say there be a witch in it, and if you let ‘ur out there’ll be a peck o’ trouble.’ Pres. by Miss
M.A. Murray, 1926.”
Both again concentrate on detailed anecdote and on the supposed consequences in

primitive society which the use of the objects bring rather than upon their role in their society.
The careful rendition of the Sussex dialect is interesting and points up a common mistake
191
when the relationship of Europeans in general, and British in particular, to the exotic world is
discussed. Frequently “us” does not mean all British in opposition to the rest(although
sometimes it does); what it often means is “we who are middle-class, educated and travelled”
in opposition to an “other” which includes both the rest of the world and the internal
otherness, that is the deeply rural or industrial underclass. These two witchcraft labels are
presented in exactly the same way and make the same points.The stress on location is
interesting, suggesting as it does a uniqueness in time and place, which leads to
assumptions that culture is a static set of institutions and beliefs that are produced by
tradition rather than historical process. As Ravenhill (1988:5) has noted:
Throughout colonial museography there was this type of assumption

that the attribution of an object to the correct indigenous category constituted in
itself anexplanation. The enterprise of categorisation ultimately produced nice,
neat lists of basic object types for... and restricted to... each ethnic. This
packaging of material culture on an ethnic basis served in turn to reinforce the
“reality” of colonially reified ethnicity. For material culture studies, the
question of style became simply a matter of ethnic traits.
Shelton reinforces this point with his description of the old ethnographic display at
Brighton, Southern England, which combines a blackened, dimly lit exhibition space with
wall cases decorated by an assortment of dark cloths, animal print wallpaper and mirrored
plinths. The gallery, due to be refurbished this year, suggests a subtle ranking of cultures by
the use of backdrops. Connotations of savagery produced by the animal print papers used to
display the African collections, reinforce the narrative classification of peoples. African and
North American collections are divided by tribal affiliation, while Asian materialis identified
by nation. The exhibition therefore provokes a contrast between tribal and national
cultures. Within this division, each African society is represented by specific and different
manufactures—the Yoruba by sculpture, the Hausa by domestic clothing, South and East
Africa by weapons and shields. Such an approach encourages the notion that
material specialization corresponds to specific psychological dispositions: the notion
that some societies are made up of religiously devoted artists, while others have a settled,
practical anddecorative flair. (1992:11–12).
Together, the labels present a range of related characteristics. They trivialize the
object by their cool, anecdotal tone, and irony, superior and well-bred, is directed towards the
specimen and its people. The object and its original owners are distanced away from “us” to
become “them.” As Julian Walker has put it, drawing on his own experience of galleries: “So
do the specimen boxes with their glass tops, the display pins, the use of filler, and the
accumulations of dust in the case corners” (personal communication).
The objects are wrenched out of their own social context, in which they would have
made good but non•exotic sense, and recontextualized within an English early- to mid-
20th-century middle-class sitting room, where they stick out like sore toes indeed. And
this replacement works a sea change as profound as that dividing the northern and
southern hemispheres. Distancing transmutes into objectifying, and the original owners
are reified through the displacement of their things into the new setting. What is
particularly true of labels is also true of the other elements in physical curation an
display. Objects were often tied onto their display boards by crossover strings threaded
through holes in the boards, suggesting capture and constraint, followed by exhibition in
192
the worst sense with its obvious sado-masochist connotations. Frequently, now, the
objects have been removed, but sometimes the boards still survive, like so many Turin
Shrouds, with their ghostly presences visible. The boards, plinths, case manufacture,
internal case layout, graphics and floor layout of cases all contribute to the making of
knowledge and its protective control. The museum history of an object chronicles the
construction of knowledge in which it has played a part, and the old labels, display
boards, plinths and graphics are the fossils of the history of meanings. Meaning and
understanding become a conglomeration of assorted biographies, of the collector, of the
curator and of the object specimen itself.
Laying-out has a double meaning, and the biographies are those of the dead, an
image which has been seized by critics and artists, whose notions we will soon explore.
The lesson learned by the Spanish museum community through the Natural History
Museum at Banyoles, whose display of a 104-year-old stuffed southern African caused a
threatened African boycott of the Barcelona Olympics, is not just political, immensely
significant although this is; it has a deeper resonance.
Theodor Adorno (1967: 24) described museums as “the family sepulchres of works of
art.” Robert Harrison (1977: 140) sees the museum as “its life, naturally ghost-like, meant for
those more comfortable with ghosts, frightened by working life but not by the past.” David
Mellor, a British politician and briefly Secretary of State responsible for arts, museums and
heritage, finds museums existing as “twilight zones” whose still life (a regular euphemism for
“dead”) displays combine worker with terror (1989:16). The characteristic smell of the
ethnographic museum, compounded of embalmed animal skins, old fabric and preserved
wood, faintly spicy and faintly dusty, is the sweet stench of mummification, and curators
become cemetery•haunting necrophiliacs compelled by a dubious romantic impulse to
arrested time and decay.
Unfortunately, this has been particularly true of British anthropological collections,

in a practical as well as a metaphysical sense. There are probably some 378 ethnographic
collections in Britain (Gathercole and Clarke, 1979), almost all of them containing material of
serious cultural significance (for if all objects are equal, some are certainly more equal than
others). Many of these collections have remained in store for decades. Outside London, there
are about 17 museum ethnography posts in the country as a whole. Equally significantly,
ethnographic display galleries tend to be obvious after• thoughts, occupying the poorest back
galleries and separated from other history-based displays (Shelton,1992: 11). As Susan Vogel
has put it:
The museum communicates values in the types of programmes it

chooses to present, and in the audiences it addresses, in the size of staff
departments and the emphasis they are given, in the selection no objects for
acquisition and more concretely in the location of displays in the building
and the subtleties of lighting and label copy. None of these things is neutral.
None is overt. All tell the audience what to think beyond what the museum
ostensibly is teaching. The past neglect of ethnographic collections tells its
own story. (1991:47)
193
Artists in Residence
The Pitt Rivers postcard belongs within what is now recognized as a “museum scene,”
that is the desire (or fashion?) to create ironic comment upon the objects and the conventional
way in which they are displayed by bringing some external influence to bear upon the
exhibitions. Most of these outsiders have been artists, who view the collected materials as
raw material for their own installations; some of the material has turned out to be very raw
indeed.These artists are not old-speak iconoclasts,who think all museums should be burnt as
the best way of coping with the corpses of dead yesterday; they are bricoleurs who are
curious about the categories of received knowledge, which museums show more clearly
perhaps than many other institutions by virtue of the physicality of their holdings and the
concrete patterns into which it can be formed. They are piqued by the displayed complacency
and wish to disturb settled convictions by their own individualist interventions.
The first artist to do this in Britain was Eduardo Paolozzi, whose exhibition, Lost
Magic Kingdoms, was shown at the Museum of Mankind (the Ethnography Department of
the British Museum) in 1987, and subsequently toured nationally. At the invitation of
Malcolm McLeod, curator of the department, Paolozzi spent three years investigating the
300,000 objects in store, most of which had never been displayed. His exhibition created
assemblages which mimicked typical ethnographic displays by mixing categories of objects
which would not normally be combined, for, as he says “for an artist, the thing of little value
can be seen as immensely significant” (Malbert, 1995: 26). In McLeod’s words the mixture
was “letting in previously neglected or despised areas and breaking down the division
between museum objects and life” (ibid.: 25).
Paolozzi was ideally cast for this project. He is one of the best collage artists of his
generation, and by applying the anarchic, free-spirited methods of collage, he produced a play
on the material as material, which for him was the point of the endeavour. For this, he was
taken to task by critics who would have preferred a more directly political turn to the
exhibition: such critics should have given more care to the exhibit’s title. Lost Magic
Kingdoms has a nostalgic flavour (did Paolozzi mean “lost to the original makers and their
successors” or did he mean “lost in the museum’s storage vaults”? or both?). Magic suggests
the conjuror’s sleight of hand which produces surprises; and Magic Kingdoms has an
unmistakable Disney ring.
Fred Wilson, a Black artist based in New York, did take a more directly political
approach. In 1990 he was asked by the Museum for Contemporary Art, Baltimore, to
organize an exhibition in the city, and he chose to position it in the Maryland Historical
Society, an extremely conservative institution. Wilson says that before the project he would
never have dreamt of going into the place, “but after spending some time there, I realized it
was not so much the objects as the way the things were placed that really offended me”
(Wilson, 1995: 27). The installation that emerged was Mining the Museum which, as Wilson
says, could mean digging up something rich, or exploding myths and perceptions, or making
it his (ibid.).
The opening display set the emotional tone of the exhibition, with its silver globe of
1870 juxtaposed beside empty plastic display mounts labeled “Plastic display mounts made ca
1960s, make run known,” and its two sets of pedestals, one set with the busts of Maryland’s
acknowledged heroes and the other set empty, where the busts of important Maryland
194
African-Americans should have been but are, of course, unavailable. This was also the
exhibition which held the now-famous case with the label “Metalwork 1793–1880”; the case
showed a group of elegant silver cups and flagons together with a pair of iron slave shackles.
As Wilson says, the objects had a lot to do with each other because life does not operate in
neat categories; the case has become one ofthose gestures which is obvious, but only after it
has been made.
Wilson followed this with an exhibition at the Seattle Art Gallery, a museum with a
broad sweep of collections, which juxtaposed traditional African clothing with a
businessman’s grey suit, and showed photographs of contemporary African architecture.
Viewers did not realize that all the clothing was worn by Africans, or that what they took to
be Los Angeles was actually Lagos. As he puts it: The interest of western museums in Africa
and the Third World is only in “difference” (the exotic) and what it can offer as a way of
seeing, in stark relief, the western self. Museums, it seems, are highly narcissistic institutions.
They feel most comfortable either when mirroring their own values, ideas and aesthetics
through western art, or when casting other cultures as dramatically different affairs. (Wilson,
1995)
In his re-dressing of the Seattle late 20th-century gallery, Wilson simply moved the
furniture. He placed the museum’s Mies van der Rohe tables and chairs in front of a Morris
Louis painting, added a coffee table and somebooks and—presto—we had a diorama of ‘the
collector’s home” (29). The diorama was garnished with two videos running a tape that
Wilson had made of various collectors’ homes. As he points out, the recreation of an African
compound or a Japanese tea-house are museum standards, and so are European period rooms
“but the spaces where much 20th-century art resides are absent.” Here, Wilson has progressed
from the straightforwardly political perception of power and dominance which a group of
related objects can be made to clarify, to a sense that we are all anthropology, that all human
life can be viewed with the same gaze which, therefore, acknowledges its equality.
An enterprise which takes the same point, but from an even freer free-fall
perspective, is the series of experiments at the Pitt Rivers in which, over the past decade,
artist Chris Dorsett has been joined by some 100 artists who have brought artistic license into
a creative dialogue with curatorial responsibility in the museum. Dorsett believes that, while
the results have sometimes been uncomfortable for all concerned, the general consensus is
that they have initiated unexpected uses of humour, fantasy, factual information and political
debate.
A principle motif in these artist experiences was to slip a piece of contemporary

art in among the museum materials on show in order to add an element of surprise to the
permanent displays. So, in 1990, Dorsett’s lime wood figure joined the exhibition called
Upturned Ark.The piece showed an angel or fetus-like figure on either a long lead or a
species of umbilicalcord. Fromits back sprouted what might be wings or a giant key for
winding up clockwork. The figure stood in close proximity to the display of model boats
and to the huge Northwest coast totem pole towards the rear of the ground-floor
gallery.The exhibition Snares of Privacy in 1992 included a huge block of wax by
Elizabeth Rosser, placed so that it looked as if it were on legs as one of a sequence of
similar-sized display cases, also on the ground floor. The wax “case” suggests notions
about the impenetrability of the standard cases, and their readiness to take the imprint of
195
whoever wishes to impose upon them. It is with this decade of experiment that the labels
postcard belongs.
These British and American artistic endeavours belong within a continental context
which runs back to the early 1970s. Around then a number of creative artists, including
Christian Boltanski, Nikolaus Lang andAnne and Patrick Poirier, became interested in what is
usually translated as “securing evidence,” Spurensichering, which is a criminological term
meaning “securing circumstantial evidence,” and expresses their interest in examining what
constitutes evidence and why: the first exhibition of this broad group, which took place at the
Kunstverein, Ham• burg, in 1974, was called Spurensicherung. Their criticism of museum
dialectic was expressed through a material practice of ordering objects – the point is
important – just as museums do for their own purposes, rather than by discursive writing
(Schneider, 1993, to which article I am indebted for information about these events). The
artists employ the devices of collection, rearrangement and fictive production of human
activities in the widest sense, significant because a strong narrative element infuses their
practice.
Around 1974–75 Nikolaus Lang, who himself comes from Oberammergau in

Bavaria, arranged in boxes unlabeled objects which he had found in one isolated
farm•stead in the countryside nearby, previously inhabited by an immigrant Swiss family
called Gotte. He had known the Gottes in his youth as marginal people, all dead by the
time he “excavated” and collected the traces of their lives. In his Box from the Gotte
Siblings, he prepared boxes in which were arranged animal bones, tools, old newspapers,
household items and books, together with contemporary photographs, maps and
geological diagrams. The inspiration of the work was the showcases in natural and
human history museums but the scientific mimicry included field work collection as well
as display (Metken, 1977: 108). In the following years (1976–77) Lang took the idea of
field work into the Tuscan countryside, classifying together Palaeolithic flint artefacts,
earth colours in use since Etruscan times, and contemporary erotic graffiti he found on
the walls of abandoned farm houses. The hallmarks of Lang’s approach are searching,
observing, recording and reenacting traces of human activities, as part academic parody,
part humanistic self-identification (Lang, 1978).
Christian Boltanski is more interested in depersonalizing individual traces

and objects by serializing them into anonymity. As he says: At the beginning of January
1973, I wrote to the directors of sixty-two art, history and anthropology museums suggesting
they arrange an exhibition which would consist of all the available objects that a given
individual has had around him during his lifetime, from handkerchiefs to cupboards. I asked
them to concern themselves with such things as classification and labelling, but not with the
choice of the person. They were to acquire the objects through an auction or by borrowing
them from some one living in their area (it is indeed necessary that the objects, on each
occasion, be obtained from the district in which they are being shown). The person concerned
should always remain anonymous. Pieces of furniture as well as small objects under glass
should be carefully arranged to a certain order, or in some cases a photographic inventory
could be compiled. (Boltanski, 1973:n.p.) Boltanski has repeated these inventories of
private belongings of anonymous people in a number of other places, including Paris,
Oxford, Baden-Baden and Amsterdam and, as Schneider says:
196
These individual and yet asceptically anonymous collections of
personal belongings, convey the same kind of eerie feeling one might have in
an imagined situation upon walking through the Victoria and Albert
Museum’s 20th-century collection, suddenly being confronted with a
showcase containing one’s own toothbrush, hair slide and dressing gown.
(1993: 4)
All these endeavours, in their different ways, are intended to subvert the
museum’s dialectic by illuminating it with the beams of parody, irony and deliberate
fiction. The museum is shown to be self-entranced, using “science” to create
narcissistic imagesinwhich “keep off the grass” signs are more in evidence than
flowers. It becomes one fiction among many possible.
Museum Visitors
And what of the last category in the metaphorical skein, the visiting and viewing
public? Cases like Wilson’s incorporating silver plate and iron slave shackles cannot fail
to shock the consciousness of all who see them. Similarly, when Wilson redisplayed the
early 20th-century gallery in the Seattle Art Museum, he pushed all the art into one
corner so that a Matisse bronze was in front ofa marble harp, a tall Giacometti in front of
a de Kooning portrait and so on. This gallery was “the most disturbing, or the most
engaging, to the visitors” (Wilson, 1995: 29). The clustering created a frenetic
arrangement in which the individual works seemed to be struggling to breathe. When
viewers asked the reason for this, says Wilson, the museum staff explained that this was
the way the African and Native American collections were displayed on the floor
below.We are not told what the visitors made of this explanation, but it is clearly
something that they asked thequestion.
Questions are less in evidence through the now considerable history of the Pitt
Rivers self-examination. The Pitt Rivers is, of course (among many other things), a
museum of museums in which the displays exhibit a Victorian density within a wholly
Victorian building and largely Victorian museum fittings. Moreover, following the
typological exhibition regime laid down as a continuing condition in Pitt River’s original
agreement with Oxford University, the material is arranged according to categories of
object, not cultural origin. For the visitor, this in itself creates an unexpected appearance
in which European weaving equipment, for example, is juxtaposed in the same case with
similar pieces from native Africa. It seems likely that most visitors lack the formal
anthropological information to understand what they are looking at anyway, so the
interpolation of modern pieces of commentary probably misfires; the whole thing looks
so odd that the modern installations merge into the background without remark. It may
also be that the labels postcard is generally purchased at its face value, and the two
witchcraft labels in the centre of it, in particular, are accepted in much the same spirit as
that in which they were written.
We clearly need to know more about what visitorsmake of such exhibitions and
interventions. Do they see them as a breath of fresh air, which will be capable of
generating new interest and new audiences? Or are they upset and confused, unhappy to find
that another supposed security has melted away? Or are they irritated by what they see as
pretension on the part of self-loving poseurs, whom they would have no wish to take into
197
their own lives? We do not know the answers to these questions, and shall not until the
necessary information• gathering projects are put in hand. We may find that, in the publics’
eyes, museums have simply offered special hospitality to yet one more privileged, self-
elected group within the elitist club.
Conclusion
Like all museum artefacts, therefore, the Pitt Rivers postcard (and all its friends)
offers an ambivalent message. Self-reflexive museum efforts, through artists and others, may
invigorate collections by showing how much magic and powerful knowledge they hold, and
how exhilarating their exhibition can be. Curators are transferring some power to named
artists, which is liberating in itself, and may yet take the abandonment of anonymity—one of
the easier pieces of mystification—to the point when named designers, researchers and
writers can be acknowledged in displays (Arnold, 1995: 39). This would help the review of
exhibitions to be more like that of a film or a stage play, and might help to bring museum
work into the critical marketplaces.
But, quite possibly, the visitors may reject much of what is done because they find it
not powerfully ironic, but superficial, tinny and trivial. Moreover, as the Pitt Rivers
installations showed all too well, museums and their material are very powerful, with an
immense capacity for the absorption of aliens; after all to turn the problematic alien into the
“Other” which supports ”Us” is, par excellence “the museum’s” art. When Wilson (1995:29)
created a set of head photographs from objects made at a time when contact between races
was new, he realised that they showed a subtle blending of ethnic features, making it visibly
apparent that when you depict another, you inevitably end up depicting yourself. Just so, it
may turn out, are the artists and their supportive curators, for subversion can only exist by
admitting the real presence of the values it endeavours to undermine. Wilson called his
photographic exhibition Mixed Metaphors and says that “this is the perfect metaphor for the
museum itself”: we may agree with him.
References
Adorno, T.
1967 Valery Proust Museum Prisms, London: Neville Spearman.
Arnold, K.
1995 Flights of Fancy, Museums journal, 5: 39.
Bennett.T.
1995 The Birth of the Museum, London: Routledge.
Boltanski, C.
1973 Lists of Exhibits belonging to a woman of Baden-Baden followed by an explanatory note
(exhibition catalogue). Oxford: Museum of Modern Art.
Gathercole, P. and C. Clarke

1979 Survey of Oceanic Collections in Museums in the United
Kingdom and Irish Republic, Paris: UNESCO.
198
Harrison. J.
1977 Eccentric Spaces, New York: Avon Books.
Hoeper-Greenhill, E.
1992 Museums and the Shaping of Knowkdge. London: Routledge.
Lang, N.
1978 Farben Zeichen Steine (exhibition catalogue), Munich: Galerie im Lenbachhaus.
Malbert, R.
1995 Artists as Curators, Museums Journal. 5: 27-29.
Mellor, D.
1989 The Delirious Museum in Museology, New York: Aper-ture Foundation.
Metken, G.
1977 Spurensicherung Kunst ais Anthropologie und Selbster-forschung: Fiktive Wissenschaften
in der Leutige Kunst, Cologne: DuMont.
Murray, M.A.
1921 The Witch Cult in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1933 The God of the Witches, London: Faber.
1936 The Divine King;1I England. London: Faber.
1949 The Splendour that Was Egypt. London: Sidgwick and Jackson; reprint 1962, London:
New English Library.
Pearce. S.M.
1995 On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in theEuropean Tradition, London:
Routledge.
1998 Collecting in Contemparary Practice, London: Sage.
Ravenhill. P.
1988 The Passive Object and the Tribal Paradigm: Colonial Museology in French West
Africa. Paper presented at the Workshop on African Culture at Bellagio, May. Unpublished ms.
Schneider, A.
1993 Kunst und Ethnologie, Ethno-LiJgik. May 1981, Mun- ster: 25-32.
Shelton, A.
1992 The Contextualization of Culture, Anthropology Today.8(5): 11•16. Vogel, S.
1991 Always True to the Object, In Our Fashion, Exhibiting Culture. I. Karp and S. Levine
(eds.), Washington: Smithsonian Institution: 191-204.
Wilson, F.
1995 Silent Messages, Museums Joumal, 5: 27•29.
199
F
A Time to Build, A Time to Tear Down: Religion, Society and State in
Contemporary Philippines
JOSE M. CRUZ, S.J.
In some Philippine towns and cities, images of Christ in his passion and death are
carried through the streets during Holy Week. The images are ordinarily kept in private
homes, either in storage areas or in those parts where people move about such as living
rooms. People’s sense of ease in having an image of a dead person in one’s house is rooted, I
suggest, in a practice that dates from before the 16 th century. When the datu (community
headman) died, his remains prior to secondary burial were kept in the house of a powerful
family with aspirations of installing the next datu. The ownership of images of the suffering
or dead Christ, grounded partly in some ingrained memory of how to deal with a dead
headman, is an act of devotion but also serves as an indicator of one’s place in the social
hierarchy. Religion shapes society even while being shape by it.
The category of religion allows for a fuller understanding of society, but its use is not
without risks. The phrase “Muslim Minadanao” for example, prevents an appreciation of the
fact that Muslims comprise only 17% of the population of Mindanao and only 4.5% of the
national population. It conjures up a Mindanao with a Muslim majority, a notion contrary to
fact.
Furthermore in the phrase “Muslim Mindanao,” the modifier is made to stand as a

proxy for very complex socio-political realities into religious categories causes a blurring of
ethnic and other differences, of contradictions within highly stratified Muslim communities,
and of heterodox practices in everyday Islam. Not infrequently, effective remedies elude
government planners because categories they employ are inappropriate.
Religion, whose role we seek to examine, does not have a permanent, immutable
form. It takes on a particular form, depending on the particular historical period and the
particular social context. When the context is pluralistic, contamination can occur. For
example many Filipinos, who believe in the personal God of Christianity, find no
inconsistency in believing as well in karma, an impersonal calculus of good and evil that
belongs to another religious tradition. A believer, who lives out his religion in a pluralistic
context, hears, so to, speak, many voices alongside that of his religion. Even as believers
formally assent to an orthodoxy, they might be quite comfortable in accepting a variety of
heterodox ideas and practices.
The pluralistic context, in which religion is lived, explains how someone can move in
and out of belief and unbelief, move from one particular belief to another, and move in and
out of particular articulations of one’s belief. Since Filipinos live in rapidly changing social
conditions, exemplified by the temporary migration of millions, we should expect changes in
the forms of religion.
Christianity in contemporary Philippines is in flux, as described above. It certainly

penetrates both private and public spheres. But it falls short of vigorously engaging the space
occupied by the formal mechanisms of civil authority.
200
When the question of religion’s impact on society is raised, the People Power
Revolutions, EDSA I and EDSA II, are often cited as concrete instances. Undoubtedly, the
two events were laden with powerful religious symbolism. However, while religion was
involved in the injection of the incumbents, it did not provide the fresh energy and the new
consciousness needed to reconfigure Philippine society. As the Philippine Revolution of
1898, religion, a century later in 1986 and 2001, played a crucial role in political shifts, but
not in any social revolution.
The Philippine society, which religion is supposed to help transform, has had a
terrible record of providing for its citizens. In the period between 1960 to the present, the
population has grown from 27 million to 82 million, or at an average annual growth rate of
about 2.6%. Although poverty incidence has declined from 58% to 33%, 27 million still live
below the poverty line, with about 10% of the labor force unemployed. More than 8 million
Filipinos now hold jobs overseas, but their increased earnings and the $8 billion dollars they
remit annually to the national economy are purchased at a very high social cost to themselves
and their families.
How do the masses perceive these social realities, and what has the Church’s record
been in addressing their social concerns? In 1896, on the eve of the revolution against
Spanish, brothers Teodoro and Doroteo Pansacula led successful armed uprising and later
declared themselves governor and brigadier-general. When the revolution succeeded in 1898,
however, they did not recognize the authority of the revolutionary government led by
Aguinaldo and urged their followers to do likewise. Furthermore, they instigated the
harassment of the wealthy families in the locality, whose departure they viewed as a
necessary step toward the equitable distribution of property. They proposed that time had
finally come “for the rich to be poor and for poor to become rich.” While the elite in various
parts of the country considered the expulsion of the Spaniards a sufficient indication that the
goals of the revolution had been met, there were those who, like the two brothers, sought
freedom from all sources of their oppression, indeed an abundance of all good things.
The incident may be instructive when attempting to make sense of the 2004 electoral
popularity, short of victory, of FPJ (Fernando Poe Junior) and of the 1998 electoral victory of
Joseph Estrada. Significant difference between notwithstanding, both appeal to the masses, in
the dual sense that the masses relate to them and that they consider the masses their
constituency.
Although the Catholic Church has withheld its support from both Esrada and FPJ,
Estrada won by a huge margin and FPJ came close to winning in May 2004. When the masses
make political choices at variance with the published preferences of the Catholic Church, its
capacity to form society has to be reassessed.
The civil disturbances of May 1, 2001, sometimes called EDSA III, are instructive. In
the early hours of that day, large crowds originating mainly from the blighted areas of Metro
Manila attacked the presidential palace, in protest over Estrada’s ouster and detention. To the
chagrin of many Church groups and NGOs that had openly supported the Estrada
impeachment, many of the protesters came from areas that had been under their care for
years. What the Church groups found disconcerting was not so much the fact that “their
201
people” had moved over to the wrong side, but that the political action completely caught
them by surprise. It was as if the Church had been out of touch with its own people.
The May 1, 2001 protest may be an omen of things to come. The event revealed not
only a growing desperation among the people, but also their alienation from their traditional
leaders, including the Church. If the Church is unable to renew its presence among the masses
and to articulate its response to their social concerns, a parting of ways may occur. Millions
of Catholics even now take their cue not from Church officials but from leaders like Mike
Velarde and other charismatic figures, whose links to the Church are tenuous.
EDSA IV is a distinct possibility. The reason is that, when in EDSA III people went
into a rampage, there were at work other players, whose social status and political agenda
were not those of the masses. Sadly, EDSA III was never intended to bring about real
reforms; nor could that be expected of an EDSA IV of similar character.
The Church may rethink its ways, if it wishes to make a significant contribution
toward the improvement of the people’s quality of life. In the Philippines, Christianity’s
presence in the public sphere has typically been in a denunciatory mode, not in a constructive
mode. The Church has shown itself capable of tearing things down, as it did in the ouster of
morally bankrupt administrations. What it has to demonstrate is its capacity to build up, its
capacity to sustain a campaign for productivity and equitability.
The lack of articulation of the constructive dimension is indicated by people’s idea of

what constitutes good works. If one asked an executive to say what good thing he has done
lately, he probably would mention a donation made to charity. Other good acts, such as the
creation of jobs, would probably not be readily seen by him as a meritorious living out of his
religion.
Incredible though it may seem, the average declared annual income of medical
doctors inthe Philippines is Pl00,000 or about $2,000. While many doctors carry out medical
missions in the slums and perform other useful service to indigent families, the moral sense
that impels them to serve others in such admirable ways is somehow suspended in the
computation of their taxes. There is obviously a selective application of morality, a situation
that arises from the lack of effective Church teaching on social realities, beyond sexuality and
family life. Almsgiving has become, for most, the quintessential good work; the reshaping of
society, meanwhile, is left to other hands.
As the State shows itself increasingly unable to design and carry out, a program of
national reconstruction, the Church is called upon to bring its vision and its resources to the
project of rebuilding the country. But while its position on family planning is well-known, its
position on agrarian reform, taxation, the environment, and other important issues is not fully
articulated.
The Church cannot hope to bring reform in these areas without wrestling with the
formal mechanism of civil authority. Should it succeed however, in awakening the
considerable qualities and resources of the People, the Church would then have to grapple
with the issue of its intervention in matters of State.
202
Figure F-1. Flagelante (c. 1950). During Holy Week, and culminating in Good Friday, a traditional aspect of Filipino religiosity manifests itself. A penit
A companion leads him, and from time to time applies lashes to his back. A crowd surrounds the two, with the flagelante on the ground. (ALK2, KIT
Figure F-2. Monument to "the Philippine Mother" (1950s).

In contrast to the different patrilineal systems of the Japanese and the Arabs, family systems in Phil-lndo are bilateral, open, and extended. An im
The values inherent in this image track easily to the role assumed by Corazon Aquino after the murder of her husband. This role as "the Mother o
EPE
203
Figure F-3. Magsaysay at Giant
Eucharistic Mass.
The President and his wife

join among international
dignitaries of the Roman Catholic
Church.
Attendees flow across the
Luneta, a massive assembly
space near Manila Bay, as far as
the eye can see. (Ramon
Magsaysay Award Foundation)
Figure F-4. President Magsaysay as Wedding Sponsor.
To serve as a ritual co-parent, compadre or comadre, is a request that in the Philippines cannot be denied. The role enriches extended family ties w
DEPE
D
204
G Folk Catholicism in the Philippines
FRANK LYNCH
From one point of view, the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines may be
characterized as a highly complicated bureaucracy, with levels and divisions sufficient in
number and shades of distinction to boggle the mind. But this is not the peole’s view.
For most Filipino Catholics—and the word “most” immediately means the rural, the
poor, and the poorly educated—the Catholic Church is the local simbahan, the clergy is the
one or two priests they may have met but rarely approach, the hierarchy (if they are aware of
it at all) is the local bishop, and the pope is probably an unknown entity.1 This is not said
in alarm or disparagingly. It is reported as a reasonably well-established fact, and with
the personal conviction that deficiencies in these matters are no cause for alarm.
Balancing this general unfamiliarity with the official Church structure and its
incumbents are a remarkable average frequency of attendance at mass (Lynch and Makil
1968), in an extraordinarily high place accorded the virtue of trust in God (Porio et. Al 1975,
41–44), and a traditional year-round mixing of culture and religion that has produced the folk
Catholicism of the Philippines.
It is this unique blend of official Catholic ritual and belief, peninsular Spanish and
Mexican additives, and the preexistent Malay base that I wish to describe in middle-distance
details. I shall do this by asking, and answering, two basic questions to which any folk
religion must respond, namely how does this folk system make the Filipino more religious?
And in what way does it make him a better Filipino?
The Concept of Folk Catholicism
Before reviewing the various ways in which the Church and Philippine culture have
adapted to each other, we do well to look more closely at the notion of folk Catholicism. It is
a term that merits accurate definition, for only if the limits of its coverage are clear will one
understand why certain traiditional beliefs qualify as elements of folk Catholicism while
others do not.
We can begin with the statement that, in the concrete, that is, in real-life situations,
one may find in any organized religion components which are officials, nonofficial, and folk,
Wether the system in question be Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam, the behavior and
beliefs of its adherents will have some elements that are orthodox, others that are officially
neither prescribed nor recommended but nonetheless of common occurrence, and still others
that, while also unofficial, have the added note of popular or folk origin.
The key to the distinction between official and nonofficial if sound in notion of
normative, in the sense of “ agreeing with an established and morally imposed standard.”
This is not to say that no unofficial or folk components will be comsidered obligatory or
prescribed by the people where they are found; on the contrary, they are frquently viewed as
at least as important as official elements, and sometimes as even more necesary for the
205
integrity of the ritual or belief. Nnor is it to say that the officially normative will always be
the total community’s ideal religious pattern. The community’s ideal will, as a matter of fact,
often deviate from the official ideal, and idelas will differ, in turn, from community to
community. However, we can very usefully define official Catholicism, for instance, as
doctrine, ritual, and administrative organization proposed, approved, or maintained as
normative by officially designated authority.
“Normative” here embraces both the prescribed and the recommended, as

distinguished from elements which are tolerated, disapproved, or demned. These latter
elements constitue the nonofficial component, and are represented in the concrete by beliefs
and practices which are viewed by officially designated church authority as respectively
harmless, suspect, or clearly unorthodox. It is evident from this range that term “ catholicism”
is applied in a different sense to the official component on the one hand, and to the unoffical
on the other, and with strikingly different degrees of looseness to the categories placed under
the latter component, namely the tolerated, the disapproved, and the condemned. In this
broadest “sense, and to cover all categories in the continuum from prescribed to condemned,
the rubric Catholicism may be taken for beliefs and practices which are either orthodox or
are obliquely derived from, or manifested in the context and under the name of Catholicism,
regardless of orthodoxy.
Suggested continuum of concrete religious behavior

Folk Catholicism
includes the three nonofficial
categories mentioned above,
but only where the belief is of
popular derivation and use,
and is sanctioned as
traditional in the community
where it obtains. This restriction reserves for separate consideration apart from folk religion
those innovations and deviations which may be incipient folk-religious elements, but have not
yet won community acceptance.
Returning to the official component, it should be noted that the Roman Catholic
Church includes both an Eastern and a Western branch united under the Roman Pontiff. While
prescribed belief and the essential elements in certain rites (the sacraments) are universal or
worldwide, there is considerable variation in liturgy, church law, and practice.Within the
Western or Latin branch, moreover, there are further differences in rites. In Latin America and
the Philippines, for example, one finds the Toledo or Mozarabic rite in the marriage
ceremony, instead of the Roman rite familiar to most Catholics of theUnited States, Canada,
and Western Europe. Another example of official but particular, as distinguished from
universal, Catholicism can be found in the rule of Friday abstinence. There was a time when
Catholics were forbidden by universal Church law to eat meat on Fridays. However, all of
Spain’s former colonies nonetheless enjoyed the privilege conferred on Spain for her
participation in the crusades, namely, exemption most of the year from the Friday abstinence.
Elements belonging to official Catholicism, then, maybe either universalor particular in their
extension.
But the concrete religious behavior (beliefs, attitudes, practices) of a Catholic is a

function not only of official doctrine and practice, universal or particular, but also of the
206
culture in which he was reared, and the community in which he dwells. The nonofficial
component of his Catholicism will derive not only from the cultural peculiarities of his
environment and his own idiosyncrasies, but from those embellishments as well which are
due to the agent which introduced Catholicism to his people.Thus Latin American folk
Catholicism is in large part a transplanted and transformed peninsular Spanish Catholicism,
while Filipino folk Catholicism is the local development of both of these sources. Knowing
what constitutes the orthodox elements of a particular belief or practice, and knowing as well
the added ideas or behavior that are traceable to Spain or Mexico or the tradition of one
religious order or another, we should be able to recognize in various religious phenomena the
residual elements due to the local version of Philippine culture.
Folk Catholicism and Philippine Society
The central message of Catholicism, like that of Christianity in general, is one of

twofold love—love of God and love of neighbor. Kindness, respect, and compassion for one’s
fellow human beings, particularly those who are on one’s side or (alternatively) are in need of
assistance, also figure prominently in those Philippine cultures of which we have some
knowledge. In the broadest sense, then, Christianity provides additional motivation for the
observance of an old cultural imperative—and for its extension beyond the traditional
segment boundaries (loving one’s enemies is certainly not a pre-Spanish trait).
Beyond this very general relation of Catholicism to culture, there are three particular
areas that deserve attention. For from the social scientists’ viewpoint the new religion has
reinforced community and family solidarity in various ways, and has also seen its own
institutions influenced and modified in turn by local social patterns. We confine ourselves to
these three copies, since we have already treated the social and economic implications of the
town fiesta elsewhere (sec LynchI 62).2
Community Solidarity
Religion has often been referred to as a divisive force. Certainly the history of
mankind provides numerous examples of conflicts which began or were continued in its
name. To mention the subject is to be reminded at once of the crusades, for example. Even
in the Philippines of 1975, there are those who appeal to religious loyalty in their attempts
to fan the flames of Muslim-Christian distrust and enmity in the troubled provinces of
Bukidnon, North Cotabato, and elsewhere in Mindanao.
There is no doubt that, paradoxically, religion can be an effective instrument for

turning the children of God against one another.
This is not the place to discuss how such uses of religion and religious commitment
are in fact abuses of a good thing, nor to explain how Christianity, for example, contains the
antidote for the virus of dissension and hate. Rather, let us accept that people often do
use religion for their own ends, consciously or unconsciously, in clearly reprehensible ways.
We shall consider instead what the situation is in those Philippine municipalities where
the population is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Since 85 percent of the nation
claim membership in this Church, we shall be describing the majority of municipalities.
It is understood, nonetheless, that in those places dominated by Muslims or Aglipayans,
folk Islam or folk Aglipayanism will probably serve similar functions.
207
The sense of community sharing is supported and expressed by attendance at official
church services such as mass on Sundays and holy days, novenas, and the rites celebrated on
the occasion of baptisms, marriages, and funerals. However, these activities, prescribed or
recommended, are supplemented and overshadowed in socializing intensity by various folk•
religious ceremonies. Most of these traditional observances are of Spanish folk origin, but
have received local elaboration and embellishment.
The Christmas season. The novena of dawn masses, or misas de gallo, draws more
the commofunity co the church at one time than any otherevent in the local religion’s
calendar, with the possible exception of the high mass of the town fiesta, or the Good Friday
or Maundy Thursday services. The misa de aguinaldo, or Christmas midnight mass, is the
climax of the Misas de gallo, and fills the church to overflowing; it is the year’s high point in
church attendance. By this very fact of bringing the people together the Christmas religious
celebrations stimulate community solidarity.
However, they do more than this, for the official services have been supplemented by
social usages which, if not strictly religious in nature, may be considered so by context (see
the definition above of folk Catholicism). Reference is to the customary gatherings in the
church patio or the plaza after the misa de gallo, and to the family repast after the Christmas
midnight mass. The general mixing in the first instance makes for stronger community
feelings within age—or generation—grades, while the second custom—that of the noche
buena, or media noche–strengthens family ties. In both cases the religious gathering becomes
the context of the social.
Kin visiting is associated in a special way with the three feasts of Christmas, New
Year’s (Santo Nino), and the Three Kings (Tres Reyes, January 6). In this two-week period the
community seems at any given moment to be comprised entirely of guests and hosts;
everyone is visiting or receiving. Kin—blood, affinal, and ceremonial—are all visited in turn
if opportunity permits, and the children especially are urged to go see their godparents. The
child is brought into pleasant and rewarding contact with relatives, honoring all its elders with
a respectful kiss (or forehead-touch) of the hand. This has the effect of reinforcing and
perpetuating kin ties and their accompanying feelings of trust and responsibility thus
strengthening the thread of which community solidarity is woven.
Processions. At various times of the year, but especially during Holy Week, the
month of May, and the time of the town fiesta, processions bring the townspeople together as
participants or observers. The Santakrusan of a moderately large barrio is probably more
effective as a socializing influence than any other procession in the year, since it closes with a
merienda for all participants, and these include men, women, and children. The Flores de
Mayo procession and services have become the affair of women and children, while the
Holy Week and town fiesta processions tend to become either sincere dramatic enterprises,
opportunities for the fulfillment of a vow, or competitive displays. Community solidarity is
promoted, but it is by appeal and support, straining action and silent or vocal encouragement,
by participants on the one hand, and sidelines on the other. This solidarity between chose who
march and those who watch is clearly expressed in the lighted candle held on the sidelines or
placed in the windows of homes on the route of the procession.
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The Lenten season. During the Lenten season the community is brought together
for several folk-religious practices which have been described else where (Lynch 1956) in
detail, namely, the pabasa ng pasiyon, or reading of the passion, and the senakulo, or
popular passion play. The first includes a merienda and an opportunity for socializing, both
or which may occupy the majority of chose who attend far more than do the seemingly
endless verses of the vernacular pasiyon. This reading, or chanting, of the passion is, to
my knowledge, found only in the Philippines. It was apparently initiated by early
missionaries who capitalized on the widespread, pre-Spanish custom of chanting lengthy
local epics.
In those communities which present the senakulo with a cast drawn from the
townspeople, the weeks of rehearsal and preparation demand the active cooperation of many
in the common effort. Where traveling professionals present the senakulo, community
feelings are still bolstered and expressed in the gatherings for the performances, and for
attendant refreshments. But when the drama is presented by the local people, it is clearly
more significant as a factor for community solidarity than is the professional innovation.
Feast of the dead. The folk-feast of undras (from the Spanish honras, “obsequies”) is
occasioned by the feast of All Souls (November 2). It brings the people of the town together at
the cemetery and in its vicinity, beginning in the afternoon or early evening of November
1. Since many barrios bury their dead in the cemetery which is attached to the poblacion
parish church, town and barrio folk come into contact—or at least juxtaposition and mutual
observation—on this occasion. As in the preparations for Christmas, and for the town fiesta,
when visitors and returning kin are expected to flood the town, so for undras large numbers
of the community go to the cemetery early November 1 to clean and whitewash the tombs or
niches occupied by their deceased kinsmen, and to help in cutting the weeds and grass that
disfigure the common areas of the kamposanto. It is the community as such that muse make a
favorable impression on those who will pay their respects at the cemetery. The local group is
on display, and it makes a common effort not to seem too dowdy co its children returned
from the city.
Life-crisis ceremonies. The three major life-crisis ceremonies of baptism, marriage,

and burial are the occasion and context for important social activities. Elsewhere (Lynch
1956), in the section on the typical religious biography, the local elaboration of the
compadrazgo, or co-parenthood system, has been described. It was there noted that whereas
church law provides for at most two baptismal godparents, it is common in some parts of the
Philippines, such as the Tagalog area, for the child’s parents to invite others to be katuwang,
or cosponsors. In this way the parents can intensify or create a significant relationship with a
great number of people, for the kumpare bond is tended even to the brothers and sisters of the
katuwang. A small community derives notable solidarity from this far-flung web of ritual
kinship.
Marriage is the joining of two extended families, symbolized and sealed by the union
in matrimony of a representative couple. Since the tendency in the Philippines is toward
geographical endogamy, crosscutting marriages even in a fairly large town will eventually
unite much of the community• but generally within one or other of the two social classes,
upper or lower. In the rural areas (generally not in the cities) the wedding banquets, at the
home of the bride, and then at the home of the groom, are often public affairs to which all are
invited. These are occasions on which the community members renew their acquaintance
with one another.
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The wake, or Lamay, and the nine-day padasal (prayers) following the burial have a
similar function. The customary game of forfeits (juegode prenda, Sp.) is a convenient
framework within which the community, or part of it, can give public recognition to an
individual’s talent as a singer, guitarist, or perhaps an impersonator. It also provides an
occasion for the young men and women to come to know one another better, or publicly to
taunt some blushing couple about their budding romance.
Summary. In conclusion, it can be stated that the sharing of official religious belief
and practice strengthens and supports the sense of oneness in the average local community.
Further, certain official observances become the occasion of traditional social practices which
also tend to unite the town or barrio folk. Finally, there are folk-religious customs which
operate almost independently of official supervision; in these observances (such as the
Santakrusan, pabasa, undras, the coparenthood system in its extended, non•official form, the
lamay, and padasal) the consequent bolstering and extending of community solidarity is most
clearly seen.
Family Solidarity
When one speaks of the family here, he must understand it as the extended family, or
as the nuclear or immediate family with no exclusion of the extended; hence at least as the
immediate-and-potentially extended family. This unit (the mag-anak) is reunited and
revitalized on one or more of four major occasions during the annual religious cycle: the town
fiesta, Christmas day, undras (November 1–2), and Holy Week. These traditional reunion
days are named in the order of importance usually attributed to them.
All families in the town or barrio feel new life in their kin-bonds at these four
celebrations. But not all of them are strengthened by another source of family solidarity,
namely, the sponsorship of some religious activity for the entire community. Only families
which are wealthier than most can afford to underwrite the expenses for such activities as a
misa de gallo (with band and fireworks) or a panunuluyan or posada, procession, and
subsequent merienda. Only those who have some sufficiency will sponsor a pabasa, or give
lodging to touring senakulo actors during Lent. Only those households with money to spare
will be the hermanos for a Flores de Mayo or Santa Cruz de Mayo procession (Santakrusan).
Only they will possess and richly adorn a processional image for the admiration and delight
of all. Other families may go into debt, but it will be for the town fiesta, and not on the
community’s but their own account.
The vow (panata) of a deceased member of the family is frequently another factor
making for solidarity and a sense of continuity with the past, usually the recent past. A
grandparent or great-grandparent might have made a vow to hold a pabasa on such-and-such
a day every year. His descendants will strive religiously to adhere to the promise, and in
doing this they freshen their memory of the dead. Again, a family may lodge certain senakulo
players from the same motive. The roles of the Apostoles for Maundy Thursday are in many
towns handed down from father to son, and roles in the senakulo are similarly passed along.
Past generations are honored in the present.
Summary. Sponsorship of community religious functions, then, serves to make of

the family a clearly designated unit which has accepted a responsibility vis-a-vis the
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community. By this stewardship it increases in both prestige and solidarity. Not all families in
the town or barrio have the means for this public service, bur they are strengthened at least by
the reunion of their far-flung members on one or more of the great annual commemorations
the town fiesta, Christmas, undras, and Holy Week.
Reflections of Social Patterns
In the previous subsection, it was mentioned that sponsorship of community

religious activities tends to unify the families involved. In a society nearly divided into “little
people” and “big people,” it is the latter who are consistently given the honor and the
burden of this sponsorship. Hence the essentially two-class system of the rural Philippines
finds its image here. It is not to be concluded, however, that the poorer members of the
community either resent this distinction or contribute nothing to the common effort. On
the contrary (whether the observer agrees with it or not), the class division and its
consequences are generally considered the natural state of affairs, and the lower class
brings to each religious event its artistic and manual labor for the preparation of the feast
and hearty participation in its celebration. It can be said that the upper class makes folk-
religious activities a possibility, while the lower class makes them an actuality. In the
local view, who will say which contributes more?
Compadrazgo. The co-parenthood system is both an expression and a semireligious

validation of Philippine society’s emphasis on generational solidarity. Reference is not to the
official Catholic provision for one or two godparents at baptism and confirmation, but to the
widespread local custom of having many more godparents, and of recognizing a coparent
relationship toward, not only these persons, but also their brothers and sisters. The parents of
a child may select, for instance, a total of four godparents, all from different families. If each
of the sponsors has four siblings, the parents will have a coparent (kumpare) relation to
twenty persons and potentially, at least, to twenty nuclear families, perhaps in the same town.
If the parents choose the godparents for their future children from different families, it is not
difficult to realize how this compadrazgo, or coparenthood system, gives perfect expression
to the Filipino’s desire to enjoy some kind of kin bond with all the age-grade or generation
comembers with whom he must now, or may someday, carry on the business of life.
Procession images. A striking example of religious behavior reflecting social

patterns is to be found in the use of large images, usually of life-size proportion, which are
carried or pulled along on their carriages in the various processions of the annual cycle.
Because this image-complex is a notable feature of folk Catholicism in most countries raised
in the Iberian colonial tradition, it is perhaps justifiable to develop this point at
greater length than others.
Many observers of Latin American folk-religious behavior have pointed out what the
tourist is struck by when he visits countries in which the local folk Catholicism gives a
prominent place to images and statues. The people give the impression of treating the statue
itself as the personage who is being honored. Yet, when questioned on the subject, almost all
will reply (there will be exceptions) by making the distinction which any well-instructed
Catholic would make, telling the inquirer that the statue or painting is to remind us of the
saint being honored, or that the various images—all under different titles—of our Lord or our
Lady merely do respect to them in some special mystery or event of their lives on Earth,
or some special attribute.
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Why then is it that, knowing that this is merely an image and not the ultimate object
of the honor being shown, so many people speak of these images as though they were
persons, and treat them accordingly? I suggest that the image represents for the persons
honoring it a means of bridging what at times seems to them an immense gap or distance
between the saint and themselves.
In Latin America, Italy, Spain, and many other countries other than the Philippines,
relations of trust, or confianza, are associated principally with one’s kin, blood or ceremonial.
This is true of the Philippines, especially in the areas outside the large cities of Manila, Cebu,
and Davao. Furthermore, friendship is showed (and confianza encouraged) by intimate face-
to-face dealings, usually with some added manifestation such as a grasping of the person’s
arm or hand while talking to him. Where the influence of the damay or folk society is strong,
these primary relations are the kind which most quickly strike a responsive chord. If one is to
show friendship and confidence, he must treat the person like a kinsman, and must be in
physical touch or contact. But how does one establish this kind of closeness with a heavenly
saint?
Through the image of the saint. Most images are adopted into households, in the
sense that they are not the property of the Church, and are not kept in the church building
during the year. Rather, when they are not in procession they are kept in private homes and
are the property of the householder. They are, in effect, members of various household in
the village or town. Thus the saint which the image represents is, in a sense, adopted into
the community, and, in a society where everyone is related to nearly everyone else by
myriad relationships, the holy one can be considered a kinsman by all.
The tendency to be able to touch the object of one’s trust and affection is also
satisfied through the image. For the image can be clothed, kissed, held, touched, carried,
caressed, and, in general, manipulated in a way which gives the devotee sensible realization
of having come close to the saint, as he would to anyone in whom he would confide.
Conclusion
How then does folk Catholicism make Filipinos better Christians? Quite simply, by
making it easier for them to understand and (with God’s help) co accept the message of
Christ. This it does by giving their faith a physical form which they recognize as their own,
communicating the Good News in language and other symbols that are distinctly theirs.
Because folk Catholicism is Christianity incarnate, however imperfectly in the Philippine
setting, it touches the heart and soul of the Filipino as no abstract text of theology could
possibly do. It has, in its own simple fashion, and with admitted errors and excesses, made a
good start on the ultimate task that faces the Church in every culture to which it is sent: the
fashioning of a Christian Way that perfects and enhances the preexistent native way of life. It
is this cherished goal, a perfect blend of orthodox Christianity and all that is good in
Philippine culture, to which folk Catholicism points the way. It is a precursor to be sure, but
an effective one.
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Folk Catholicism also makes better Filipinos of those who practice it. For the
behavior which it encourages is almost invariably supportive of central Philippine values and
norms. Practicing folk Catholics, in fact, will generally be solidly traditional Filipinos. The
orthodox Filipino Catholic need be no less Filipino, to be sure, and should indeed be more
profoundly and perfectly Filipino. Otherwise, the Incarnation has not touched the Philippines
as it was intended to.
References
Lynch, Frank. 1956. Organized religion: Catholicism. HRAF Area Handbook on

the Philippines. Chicago: University of Chicago for the Human Relations Area
Files, Inc. pp. 476–686.
---------. 1962.Town Fiesta: An Anthropologist’s view. Philippines International 6,
no. 6:4–11, 26–27.
Lynch, Frank and Perla Q Makil. 1968. The BRAC 1967 Filipino family survey. Saint
Louis Quarterly 6, nos. 3–4:293–330.
Porio, Emma, Frank Lynch, and Mary R. Hollnsteiner. 1975. The Filipino family,
community, and nation: The same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Quezon City:
Institute of Philippine Culture, Ateneo de Manila University.
Notes:
1. One source of empirical data on these matters is a report on the Baguio Religious
Acculturation Conference (BRAC) Christian Filipino family survey (Lynch and Makil 1968).
2. In reading the paragraphs that follow, those who are unfamiliar with the Philippine Rural
scene may find some of the references to folk rituals too brief or uninformative for their taste. Detailed
descriptions are given in an earlier publication (Lynch 1956).
213
H Modernity and the Filipino
RANDOLF S. DAVID
In the 1960s, the debates in Philippine social science with modernization, defined
roughly as the replacement of traditional values and institutions with modern ones. Forty
years later, we seem to be still harping on the same issues, although we are wont to speak
today about “modernity” rather than modernization. By “modernity,” we mean the ability to
feel at home in a rapidly changing world, a world in which, in the memorable words of Marx,
“ everything that is solid melts into air.” In the past, the only way to face modernity was by
the route of modernization, a thinly veiled synonym for Westernization. Today, we speak of
alternative modernities to refer to various ways of dealing with lure of the new.
Other observers might see the evolving environment in which we live in terms of
theprocessesofglobalizationand their associatedperilsand opportunities. I think, however, that
it is not just the global scale or reach of these processes, but also the radical changes in the
way human beings are asked to live, that invites careful analysis.
Until recently, to modernize was an option that every society could take up or ignore.
Non-western nations, with long histories and ancient traditions, were particularly wary of
modernization because it meant giving up their identity and adopting the Western way of life.
The link between economic progress and modernization was, however, such
powerfulincentive that many tooktheroadshown bytheWest.Even so not everyonewas,
seduced into following this road. Countries like India often, chose value-friendlyslow growth
over the West’s value-disrupting fast growth.
Today, globalization is radically erasing that choice. Nations seeking acceptance into
larger community of nations are virtually being commanded to modernize, or perish. In the
past, the world community was content to regard marginalized societies purely in the
humanitarian terms of refugees to be fed and sheltered, and fragile governments to be nudged
in the direction of greater respect for human rights, democracy and more open way of life.
Today, the risks previously associated only with rogue states—small unfriendly nations with
the capability to use weapons of mass destruction—are being monitored wherever a potential
for sheltering terrorist networks, dirty money, drug dealers and criminal syndicates exists.
The world in which we live not only compels us to be modern under pain of isolation
and marginalization; indeed it also lures us into risking everything we value and believe in on
the promise, not necessarily of a better life, but only of something different. Is there a way of
dealing with the forces of modernity without losing our freedom, our balance, and our
humanity?
To be modern
“To be modern,” Marshall Berman writes, “is to experience personal and social life
as a maelstrom, to find one’s world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal,
trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is
solid melts into air.”
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Berman meant this as a portrait of the human condition in modern society, but it
occurs to me that it may as well be the most eloquent description of the situation of Filipino
overseas worker. They who bravely wrench themselves free from everything that is familiar
—family, community, and nation—in order to participate in societies and cultures of which
they often know nothing, to earn a living among strange peoples that normally welcome their
labor but not necessarily their person, in time of great uncertainty and danger; but also of
reinvention. I consider our OFWs “ true moderns,’ and my sense is that a close look at their
situation may illustrate for us the realities and challenges facing us as a nation.
“ To be a modernist,” continues Berman, “ is to make oneself somehow at home in

the maelstrom, to make its rhythm one’s own, to move within its current in search of the
forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice that its fervid and perilous flows allows.”
This characterization is important because it can apply to the saga of individuals as

well as of whole nation. To be modern does not mean to be engulfed by the maelstrom. It is
rather to have the audacity to create a home within it, to master its rhythms, and to move
within its currents. It is not to drown, but to flow with its tides; it is to live and survive and
claim some happiness in a frenzied and eternally spinning environment, trusting and using
only whatever personal strength and creativity one can summon. At once what come to mind
is the image of those intrepid adventurers who work all week but fill Europe’s otherwise
empty cathedrals every Sunday, or gather spontaneously in the central squares of Hong Kong,
Singapore, and Jeddah in a bid to recreate a bit of the hometown in the bosom of a faraway
land.
The overseas Filipino worker may be likened to a turtle: she carries her home on her
back wherever she goes. She may go away, she may cut all physical ties, clear the deck of all
entanglements, and harden herself for the rigors of isolation and powerlessness and abuse, but
in whatever she does, she continually draws from a basic self that her native culture had put
together for her. No matter if she is alone, she never feels totally unprotected. Researchers of
Filipino migrant workers have taken note of this remarkable gift and have referred to it in
various ways—resiliency, resourcefulness, courage, survival instincts, practicality, spiritual
fortitude, or simply the good old bahala na attitude surfacing as a positive virtue. We may
think of it simply as the portrait of the modern as a Filipino.
We don’t need to go away, of course, to experience modernity. Our own society has
been rapidly transformed in ways that evoke Berman’s metaphor of the maelstrom. Those
among us who grew up in an earlier time often feel like immigrants in our own society. We
have problems living with the new and pine for the simplicity and integrity of the old. We
search for order and predictability based on the recognition of duty.
But that is a world that is permanently gone. Modern technology has changed our
lives in ways we cannot even begin to imagine. Satellite television, the fax machine, the
personal computer, the shopping mall, the Internet, the cellular phone and the whole amazing
culture of “texting” just to take the most recent examples, have massively altered the way was
we experience and look at the world, and relate to one another. To fail to realize this is to risk
isolation and disorientation.
The response to modernity may be passive or it may be active. Passive modernists

are caught in the swirl of a world they cannot hope to control; theirs is a life of constant
215
coping under pain of isolation. Active modernists, in contrast, try to assert control over some
aspects of their situation by anticipating events and planning ahead; theirs is a life of
continuous creative adaptation, non-stop experimentation and passionate engagement.
Let us examine some crucial sites and signs of modernity in our society.
a) Education. As it was then, when the American teachers known as the Thomasites
first arrived on our shores a hundred years ago, so it is today, through the popular computer
schools that are making the new science of information accessible to the lower classes—the
school remains the most important workshop of modernity. Filipino parents know that only
formal education can rescue their children from the vicious cycle of poverty. It is formal
education that has created the Filipino middle class.
Unlike other cultures that look upon the modern school as the workshop of the devil
or the incubator of dangerous ideas, our culture has always nurtured an instinctive faith in the
miracle of education. The school is without any doubt the most important channel of social
mobility, a fact that makes us wonder even more why we have the state of our public
educational system to languish in neglect.
What the public educational system has failed to address, the private sector has taken
up both as a mission and as a business enterprise. While public institutions remained tuck in
the traditional academic offerings like law, medicine, engineering, and the liberal arts—the
new entrepreneurs of learning saw the market for skilled technicians in the communication
and information sectors and sought to produce the workhorses of the digital age. Their
foresight has paid off as we can see from the proliferation computer schools everywhere.
Today, for example, the new AMA Computer University, which started from rented spaces in
rundown buildings in lower-middle class neighborhoods, boasts of a student population that is
three times as big as that of UP, and spread out in over a hundred campuses all over the
country. Not far behind is the STI, whose phenomenal expansion has benefited from
the importation of professors from the ranks of our own faculty.
The role of these schools in democratizing access to tertiary education cannot be
underestimated. They have become the principal channels for oversease technical
employment, and the main producers of those that we in the elite universities used to sneer at
as mindless vocational technicians. These technicians now constitute the country's reserve
army in the new information economy.
What’s fascinating about these schools is the way in which they create a hospitable
home for non-elite ambitions. Class and family background are totally irrelevant within their
settings. They cater to individuals in search of skills they can use in a globalized anonymous
market, not credentials they can flash in a hierarchical status-fixated society.
b) The Market. By “Market”, I mean here the wide arena of exchange through
which products are introduced and traded. From the moment our ancestors began to trade
with the Chinese junk boat merchants, we became aware that there is a world outside
waiting to be explored. We are a nation or tireless shopper, and our fondness for imported
goods in legendary. We often see it as a colonial hangover, but in many ways, our
receptiveness to things foreign is also what makes us so open to the modern. Goods are the
bearers of entire lifestyles, and as a people we have always been friendly to imports. Unlike
the Japanese, we have no emotional or cultural attachment to our own products. For a
nation that seeks to develop its own productive system, this is not exactly something to
rejoice over. But it is what makes us Asia’s most modern people.
216
Perhaps the clearest and most dominant trope we can use for this cultural openness is
the “mall rat,” a rough equivalent for Charles Baudelaire’s flaneur. He window-shops and
people-watches all day, but buys almost nothing. He surveys the bountiful offerings of
consumerism, looks at them with fascination, and moves on. He is familiar with what every
mall has to offer and the kinds of people who flock to them, but he has no attachments to
people or to objects. He loves the cool ambience, the clean toilets, the noise and frenzy, and
the variety. He knows every nook and corner of it, and can feel comfortable in it, but it is not
exactly his home. He is neither terrorized nor mesmerized by the new or the imported. He
looks at its promises, but is not completely lured by it.
I think that as a people in the throes of modernity, we learn the techniques of the
modern over time; we adjust our ways, and improvise and improve upon the imported. I do
not believe that we have been passive recipients of foreign goods and technologies. Just to
take one example, McDonalds’s entry into the local food sector launched the whole notion of
“fast-food” a way of delivering service in a fast-paced, efficient, inexpensive, and cheerful
way without sacrificing quality and hygiene. Today it is not unusual to see Filipino fast-food
chains adopting the American way, but doing better than their foreign counterparts.
I don’t think we have ever been afraid of the new and the foreign, although our
indiscriminate openness to external forces has been a classic source of vulnerability—insofar
as the project of nationhood is concerned. The 1997 Asian financial exemplifies this very
well.
c) The Mass media. Television, in particular, has exerted a profound influence on the
way we live. Because of the pervasiveness of English, we are a natural market for American
programs and American movies, which are the most effective carriers of modernity. Unlike
newspapers, TV cuts through class barriers. The most impoverished families would dispense
with basic furniture in their homes but not a television set. TV has always been for our people
a window to what they can be, and to a way of life they can aspire to have. In many ways, the
long exposure to American television has given million Filipino migrant workers the basic
cosmopolitanism that allows them to adapt easily to other cultures. Again, this is a quality of
the modern person.
Today, the Internet is playing the same radical role in our lives shown earlier by
television. Internet use in our society is in its early stages still, but the great class divide that I
thought would prevent the children of poor families from participating in the new digital
world no longer seems insurmountable. Computer schools and Internet cafes and centers are
sprouting all over, and while it is still a largely middle class tool, with the diminishing costs
of computers, the Internet is becoming more and more a lifeline to the future for the children
of the poor.
E-mail and e-groups are reweaving the various threads of the Filipino nation, be they
families, regional and linguistic communities, school-based affinities, professional
associations or hobby groups dispersed around the globe. These electronic tools are also
spawning new communities, new social movements, and new intellectual and political for a
never before thought possible. The speed and simplicity with which these modern tools work
have transformed the whole world of communication. Interestingly, instead of obliterating the
content of the old cultures and erasing old ties, the Internet can also serve as a resuscitator
and intensifier of primordial identities. But unlike traditional loyalties, the new electronic
217
communities do not engulf the whole person. Withdrawal from their fold is quick and easy:
just type “unsubscribe” No further explanation is needed or required.
d) Overseas work. Finally, there is overseas employment, about which I spoke earlier
and on which I want to share a few more notes here. I think it is worthwhile looking into the
impact of this phenomenon beyond the problems posed by brain drain. If one examines
Philippine social history, one would be hard-pressed to find any other phenomenon that has
had as dramatic, as deep and as comprehensive an impact on the collective fate and private
lives of Filipinos as overseas employment.
Short-term overseas work of the last 25 years has irreversibly shaped the Philippine
economy, modified the bureaucracy, and transformed the Filipino family, the relations
between spouses, and between parents and children. It has changed the physical landscape of
the remotes barrios, now teeming with the ubiquitous “katas ng Saudi” (literally, “sap from
Saudi”) homes. It has transposed career patterns, consumer tastes, status systems, and even
mode of spirituality.
It has altered the nature of consular work abroad, and made new demands on foreign
policy. It has liberated Filipino women contract workers from traditional bondage to the
men in their families. It has allowed them to nurture the private self as a worthy project,
free from the constraints of tradition, and away from the unrelenting and often suffocating
pressure of family obligations. Within only one generation, the foreign travel that overseas
contract work has made possible has brought our nation into the very heart of the modern and
global age.
I call this phenomenon and the sum total of its effects the Filipino Diaspora—a
collection of experiences arising from the “doubled relationship” or dual loyalty that
migrants, exiles, and refugees have to places—their connections to space they currently
occupy and their continuing involvement with “back home”.” (Lavie and Swednburg, 1996,
p.14)
It is not the travel itself that is new, but the purpose and magnitude in which it is being
undertaken, and the various unexpected consequences it has brought about. What was
originally conceived as a stop-gap measure to alleviate domestic unemployment and to help
the country pay for its oil imports in the mid-70s has become a lucrative industry for
recruiters, a steady source of foreign exchange for the government, and a popular and instant
exit from poverty for millions of poor families.
The gender shift in migration may be regarded as among the most revolutionary events
in the history of the Filipino family, Filipino women in traditional households were
homebound, institutionally deprived of the opportunities for higher education, a professional
career, and a life of their own. But when the OCW program dangled the prospect of capturing
the international market for domestic helpers and nurses for the Middle east, tradition
crumbled and millions of Filipino women found themselves suddenly released from their tacit
vows of obedience to the males in their families—their fathers, brothers, and husbands. To go
abroad, to work in foreign homes, was for them an act of liberation. This phenomenon
triggered overseas jobs—as the out-migration of Filipino women for other overseas jobs—as
singers, dancers, and hostesses in Japan, as factory workers in Japan, Taiwan and South
Korea, and as domestic helpers in Singapore, Hong Kong, Italy and Spain. A corollary route
218
was intercultural marriage, which was extensively promoted by “mail-order-bride” or match-
making agencies. The phenomenon of mail-order brides has now invaded the Internet.
Websites like Filipina.com and Filipino.wife.com lure thousands of Filipino women from
everywhere and from different levels of education. I do not know how this can be stopped or
regulated except by making available counter-information that warns our women against the
dangers of such arrangements.
But here again we are face to face with a situation of globality that available national
instruments are simply unable to deal with adequately. Here you have a nation-state that is
desperately attempting to maintain a level of relationship with its citizens, and it realizes that
the only way to do that is to redefine its own institutions.
Two things come to mind in this regard—two urgent bills filed in Congress—one that
provides for dual citizenship to Filipino who have adopted foreign citizenship, and another
that offers absentee-voting rights to Filipinos residing or working abroad. Just a few years
ago, both bills would have been unthinkable, as we were wont to think of Filipinos who have
decided to leave the country for greener pastures as somehow having lost any moral right to
participate in its political processes. But if we assiduously claim a part of their earnings in the
form of taxes or remittances, why shouldn’t they continue to exercise rights within the
political community? This brings us to the contradictions and modes of adaptation that the
transition of modernity spawns in our society.
e) Law and Culture. The culture of our ancestors was a profoundly personalistic culture
befitting small face-to-face communities, where “hiya” or shame was a powerful social
sanction, and where the need for social acceptance kept members of the community from
straying too far from the customary.
The culture, based largely on tacit understandings and expectations, has, over the years,
become irrelevant to the requirements of a complex society. Yet the spread of a modern legal
culture, that would take the place of the customary culture, has been slow and uneven.
Culture and law often clash with one another in some settings, while in others they
ingeniously ride on each other. We find lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats bending the legal to
accommodate the cultural. And vice-versa, we find old cultural scores being settled using
modern law and the judicial system as a weapon. The trial of Erap is a volatile blend of all
these.
The reason for the failure of the culture of the law to be internalized by our people is
due, I think in no small measure to the foreign origin of our legal system. Our civil and penal
codes are largely Spanish, Our corporate and electoral laws are American. These legal
systems, like our own political system, did not spring originally from the cumulative
experiences of our nation. They do not resonate deeply-held indigenous values.
Offenses in our society are well-defined by our laws, but they are seldom accompanied
by a sense of guilt in the offenders. There is, we say, a disconnect between the laws and the
“collective conscience,” to borrow a term from Emile Durkheim. This is not to say that laws
of foreign origin can never be our own. It is only to say that a process like this is never
smooth. Imported laws acquire specific uses never anticipated by their authors. We cannot
pressure too much. The Filipino driver who goes through a red traffic light is not always
219
maliciously flouting the law; he may think he is just being practical, but the chances are he
cannot even read traffic signs.
The disconnect is perhaps most visible in behavior in public office. One of the most
basis features of Western modernity is the clear separation of the public and the private.
Where this distinction is not part of the consciousness of individuals, it is difficult to speak of
corruption in any meaningful sense. In our society, the personal almost always shades into the
official, and vice-versa. A public official may not accept a bribe, the Filipino cannot turn
down a gift without risking insult to the given. Joseph Estrada’s troubles as president
multiplied from the precise moment he stopped going to his designated office in Malacañang
and decided to hold court instead in the sala of the Presidential Residence. There, Cabinet
meetings dovetailed the informal gatherings of presidential cronies.
Perhaps no laws have been taken more lightly than our election laws. I know of no one
in our country who has been jailed or disqualified from holding office for over-spending or
accepting illegal contributions. The Comelec gives no more than a cursory glance at the
declaration of contributions and expenditures filed by candidates at the end of every election.
These sworn statements are only very rarely truthful; no one believes them. The same
cavalier attitude shown toward electoral laws is mirrored in the Filipino voter’s lack of
appreciation for the meaning of his ballot. He seldom gives his right to vote the importance it
deserves because he does not understand the simple philosophy in which it is embedded.
Political right came to our people ahead of economic liberation. And so they have spent the
last half century trying to appease their economic wants by trading in their political rights.
f) Politics. In the previous sections of this papers, I have tried to show how in many
subtle ways, Filipino community has been fragmented by the globalization of the labor
market. But, we know by now, I think, that the biggest danger we face as a nation is
fragmentation and dissolution but a prolonged civil war.
We were closest to a civil war during the dying years of Martial Law, when the Marcos
regime was increasingly unable to govern, and credible mechanism of succession did not
exist. In 1985, in answer to an American TV anchor’s doubts about his political legitimacy,
Marcos offered the challenge of an election that everyone knew he would rig. We took that
challenge despite what reason was telling us. Looking back, I think if our people had rejected
it, as they had every reason to, there would have been no other choice for us at the same time
but armed struggle.
But we took a leap of faith, literally and metaphorically. In this, I believe, we were
being modern, albeit in a reckless way. Instead of a clear plan of action, we drew from a rich
reserve of spirituality to overcome our fears.
We, as expected, the Bataan upheld the reelection of Marcos, the Americans advised us
to accept the spurious results of the 1986 elections that Marcos had clearly stolen. They
advised us to fight another day. This was also what the US wanted us to do during the
impeachment trial of Estrada in 2001—not to protest and not to abandon the impeachment
process but to accept the foregone conclusion that Estrada would eventually be acquitted by
the majority in the Senate. Such is democracy, the American media told us. If we wanted to
be modern in the Western sense, a basic commitment to institutions, I think, would have
dictated a submissive course of action, in both instances.
220
But we decided to be modern in an alternative way—we rejected what was wrong and
rushed headlong into the swirl of events without demanding to know beforehand how the
process would end. Perhaps the right word is “postmodern”—foreign analysis thought we had
a dangerous tendency to distrust our own institutions. In a sense they were right. In 1986, we
knew nothing about people power. We stumbled upon it as a political device lying somewhere
between elections and revolutions. Fifteen years later, we were not certain whether we could
resort to it again to oust a corrupt and incompetent president. But, by then, uncertainties no
longer fazed us.
But now we have begun to worry that we have not paid much attention to nurturing our
institutions. We worry that we may have frayed the fabric of our national life too often and
stretched the meaning of democracy beyond recognition. We look around us and we are
distressed to see how many incompetent people and suspected criminals we have elected to
public office. Criminal syndicates roam the country with impunity. The whole nation is held
hostage by well-armed bandits styling themselves as warriors for Islam. We cannot seem to
trust the military or the police to protect us, or our courts to dispense justice, or the mass
media to tell us the truth.
Our first task should be to understand and accept what we have become. To understand
means to take a hard look at our present situation and to identify the weakest areas of our
national life requiring the most urgent and sustained intervention. To accept means to free
ourselves from the sentiments of past generations to stop blaming colonialism, or the betrayal
and complicity of our leaders, for our troubles as a people.
It is to believe that we are what we are today as a result of the peculiar circumstances
of our revolution as a nation. That colonialism produced both good and bad effects. That we
must learn to preserve and build upon the good, and charge the bad to experience. Today we
have a people to feed, house, and educate. There is a whole world out there that gets more
and more complex every day. Its presence is for us both danger and opportunity.
Concluding Notes
What I have to do here is to outline what I think have been the main features of the
Philippine experience with modernity. I have used the heroic figure of the Overseas Filipino
Worker as an analogue for a nation has also been a story of ceaseless coping with recurrent
problems that worsen with time. Like the OFW, we drift as a nation, we manage, and we
coast along, and miraculously survive the trial that come our way—until another major crisis
hits us. Then we summon all our faith, and draw from a heroism that we think we no longer
have. We jolt the world by the awesome risks we take, and surprise even ourselves with the
providential results we achieve by our recklessness. No wonder we are people of uncommon
faith.
But our problems are graver with every passing year. The silent crisis we live in is
more dangerous. We have not prepared ourselves for the economic storm that is shaking the
rest of the world. This is all because we tend to reserve our passion and heroism for those
dramatic moments—the people power events—rather than for the long intervals when seem
to be at rest, when nothing great seems to be happening.
221
We give in to cynicism; we allow ourselves to be intimidated by the complexity of the
tasks at hand, and to be discouraged by the pettiness of out politicians. We demand so much
our government, but expect so little from the people we elect to public office. Again it is
because we don’t see the interconnection.
To be modern is not just to survive a world of continuous change; more than this, it is
to be able to exercise a measure of control over our lives. This we cannot do by being
satisfied with mere coping.
And here I go back to Berman’s reminders. To be modern is to open ourselves to the

possibilities bought about by the unending flux of innovation and obsolescence. It is to
welcome change, and to be at home in it rather than to sneer at the new from the vantage
point of romanticized past. But to be modern is also to grow in freedom with time, to strive to
reduce our vulnerability to unsettling events and phenomena, and to discipline and form
ourselves into a confident, stable, and peaceful community.
To be premodern is to reject our hand a world that contradicts our faith, while to be
modern is to leap into it and to create new meaning and ever new lives on the back of time
without losing sense of what it is to be human.
The formation of a new culture hospitable to social justice, democracy, and freedom
will not come from the simple revival of indigenous values, though without any doubt we
may draw some strength from them, nor will it come from the blind imitation of Western
institutions and practices. As in the past, it will come from the imagination of those who, like
Jose Rizal, could step out of the skin of the existing culture, criticize this in relation to the
exigencies of survival in a vastly changed would, and offer new perspectives appropriate to
the times in which they live.
References
2. Lavie, Smadar& Ted Swedenburg, eds 1996.
1. Berman, Marshall. 1988. All that is solid Displacement, diaspora and geographies of
melts into air. The experience of modernity. identity. Durham,N.C.: Duke University
New York: Viking Penguin Press.
222
I The Case of Filipina Domestic Helpers in Singapore and Hong Kong
F. LANDA JOCANO
This paper deals with the phenomenon of “culture shock” experienced by Filipinas
working as domestic helpers in Singapore and Hong Kong. Reports of incidents of “mental
disorders”, “emotional stress,” “suicides” and many other forms of difficulties suffered by
Filipina domestics during their stay in these places often bug the newspaper headlines.
Many reasons are given why these incidents happen. The most striking ones are
psychological in nature. While this is true, this paper offers another explanation: culture
shock.
It is misleading if one focuses attention mainly on the difficulties Filipina domestics

suffer while working in these places. There are some success stories but these seldom land
in the newspaper headlines. They only serve to fan the imagination of relatives, neighbors
and friends to come to these distant cities to seek the “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”.
Some are lucky and others are not, whichever is the outcome of their ventures, they all
encounter the same initial “shock” in the new cultural setting with which many are not
prepared to cope.
The term “culture shock” refers to a “form of anxiety that results from an inability
to predict the behavior of others or act appropriately in a cross-cultural situation.” This
anxiety arises because of differences in cultural ways of thinking, believing, feeling and
acting that characterize the orientations of people in different cultures. What appears to be
logical in one culture is illogical in another. And so on.
Culture has been broadly defined as a way of life. Each group of people has “a way
of life”—whether viewed from purely economic, social, political, and religious terms. It is
this “way of life” which makes certain traits universal and others particular. For example,
eating is universal but preparing meals are not. Shelter is universal but building houses and
living in them are not.
Clothing is universal but constructing attires and being fashionable is not. It is the
nuances associated with these universal traits which make them unique to certain groups of
people.
Behaviorally, culture may be further viewed as a system of symbols and meanings

people use to (I) organize their ideas, (2) interpret their experiences, (3) pass judgments or
make decisions, and (4) guide their behavior. Symbols are objects, ideas, sounds (as in
language) and acts to which observers (as well as actor) endow certain attributes and use
these attributes to represent the realities of the objects, ideas, sounds and acts.
Where attributed meanings are not congruent, difficulties in the organization and
interpretation of actions take place. A person may know how to operate a telephone but if he
cannot speak the language, like being in a foreign land, he could not reach the person he
wants to speak with. If two persons do not share the same “meaning” they give to an object,
they ultimately quarrel.
223
Asian countries are said to share similar cu1tures. This is true in the surface. But
underneath the veneer of being Asian, there are nuances of lifestyles which make Asian
countries differ from each other. These nuances are the major factors which hamper the
ability of those who choose to live in other cultures to respond appropriately or to adapt
quickly to the situation (s) in the host country.
The experiences of Filipina domestics in other Asian countries support this

observation. Much of their reported sufferings are largely due to “culture shock”. How to
minimize the impact of this “shock” in their lives is one of the issues that ought to challenge
the concern of labor and civic leaders in the countries of origin and the host countries.
Methodology
The data for Singapore were obtained during fieldwork in that country in
1985 and 1986. The ones from Hong Kong were culled from the reports of colleagues
and other writers. These data have since been updated through interviews with
Filipina domestics who have returned to the Philippines. In other words, the data for
this paper came from two sources: actual interviews in the field and secondary
reports culled from published materials. Interviews with scholars who have done similar
fieldwork were conducted to supplement the field materials.
Filipino Migrant Labor: An Overview
The phenomenon of Filipino migrant labor is not new. It began as early as the turn
of the 20th century, when the American plantation owners, particularly the sugar barons of
Hawaii, recruited thousands of young Filipinos to work in the sugar plantations. The first
batch was in 190? which consisted mainly of 20? people, mostly Tagalogs. ‘The next group
came from Cebu in 1915. From 1919 to 1940, most recruits came from the Ilocos region.
After the Second World War, most Filipino labor migrants were professionals:
nurses, doctors, engineers and businessmen. They went mostly to the United States, Canada
and Europe. The migration spread over a period of more than twenty years, from 1950 to
1970.
The boom of non-professionals but skilled labor migrants took place in the 1970s.
Hundreds and thousands of Filipinos were recruited as construction workers in the Middle
East. Of course, there were other places like Guam, Marianas, Malaysia and Indonesia. But
the bulk was in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Following close to the heels of Filipino construction workers were Filipinas who
were recruited to work as entertainers, hospital attendants, hotel chambermaids and
domestics. The latter were recruited mostly for Japan, Europe, Middle East, Singapore and
Hong Kong. This paper deals mainly with experiences of domestic help (DH) in Singapore
and Hong Kong. The number of Filipinas working as DH in these two cities varies. There
are no accurate statistics in that some domestic helpers do not pass government processing
agencies, like the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA). They go through
private recruiting agencies. Others are directly hired.
224
Reasons for Going Abroad
The reasons domestic helpers give when asked why they opted to work abroad are
varied. Most of them however give economic reasons as the main stimulus in doing so.
They are ware of the risk associated with such venture. An informant said: “ Kami ay
nagbabakasakali kumita at makaginhawa naman sa hirap ng buhay sa ating bansa.” (We
take the chance order to earn (money) in order to “breath” sufferings we experience in our
country),
While economic reasons are recognized, are other factors informants give for
abroad as domestic helpers. Among these are “bastamaka-abroad lang” (just to go abroad),
“nagtampo kaya lumayas” (ran away from home because of hurt feelings), “mayroong
iniiwasan” (to escape from something or someone), and many others.
In other words, working as a domestic help is one of the easiest ways to avoid all
these troubles. Most of these domestic helpers are college graduates. Some are already
gainfully employed here in the Philippines. But many do not have the necessary skills to
compete in the labor market abroad, hence they accept the most readily available ones—
domestic helpers.
Cultural Shock Experiences: Some Cases
Almost all researchers who studied the plight of domestic helpers abroad report that
the initial problems of them met were psycho-social in nature. Meaning “culture shock”.
They left the Philippines with high hopes, often figuring how much they would make and
the bright future their families would enjoy upon return. However, many of them did not
quite make it. Some did. Many fortunate ones—those whose employers were diplomats,
businessmen, and “foreigners” (mostly Whites)—enjoyed comparable living and no sad
tales to tell. But they also had initial discomforts with the new culture. The many
unfortunate ones, on the other hand did not only have discomforts, they underwent all kinds
of sufferings ranging from nervous breakdowns to physical abuse.
The major challenge which confronts the domestic helpers, or anyone who goes
abroad for that matter is how to cope with the problems of the new environment. The
accounts informants narrate when interviewed point to what is known in the literature as
“culture shock.” That is, the inability to cope with new ways of doing things in the new
environment. There are six major areas where the “shock” is most prominent: language,
food, loneliness, jealousy, sexual abuse, and cultural practices.
Language
Miscommunication is one of the major of culture shock. The inability to convey a

message or to be understood is an excruciating experience. It brings about anxiety and fear,
especially in a foreign land. Many of the problems Filipino domestic helpers encounter in
Singapore and Hong Kong emanated from language difficulties. English is spoken and
generally understood in many sectors in Singapore and Hong Kong. Young Singaporeans
225
and Hong Kong Chinese know English. But many of the older ones do not speak the
language or, at best, have very little knowledge of it.
Thus, outside of the home, the newly-arrived domestic helpers do not have any
language problem. They also do not have any language problem with the younger
employers, although many young Chinese do not have a good grasp of the language. The
problem is with the older people in-laws, parents and grandparents—who are left behind
when the younger employers go to the office.
Generally, the older people are very conservative. They are also meticulous about
household work. When the younger employers come, they complain about the performance
of the help—”Your help is lazy”. She does not know anything.
Such complains oftentimes also anger the young employers, especially the women.
The role of older people, especially mothers and mothers-in-law cannot be overemphasized.
Not to react positively to what they say is perceived as disobedience, a very serious offense
in Chinese culture. Thus, complaints from the older people about the helps’ performance
often trigger a quarrel between the employer and the help.
Some employers hit the helps physically when angered. Others pull the hair or heap
verbal abuse. Newspaper reports of cases of physical violence due to miscommunication are
many. Here is one:
Elena Cruz (a pseudonym), 20, comes from Cagayan Valley. She is the eldest in a
family of seven. She was in second year high school when her parents died. She decided to
quit school and find work in order to make the family survive.
One day, a neighbor friend dropped by. She has just arrived from Singapore for a
vacation. She is working as a domestic helper. She narrated her wonderful experiences and
showed colored photographs to back up her stories. She also said she is earning S$300.00 a
month, which is equivalent to P3,000.00
This excited Elena and her siblings. They asked the girl how she was able to go to
Singapore. She told about the process—go to the recruiting agency, follow up papers, and
pay the necessary fees, which amount to P8,000.00.
“After that, everything is simple,” said the friend.
Elena decided to go. With the help of relatives, she was able to raise the money. She
went to Manila and approached the recruitment agency that was recommended by her
friend.
Elena cannot speak good English. But she can manage a halting conversation. On
arrival in Singapore, she was fetched from the airport by the man from the agency. They
were taken to “a big house in the city.” From there, the prospective employer picked her up.
Elena’s employer is a young Chinese couple who are in a private company. At home, the
man’s older sister and mother stay with them, the flat is located on the 6th floor of a high-
rise apartment.
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The older sister runs a good stall in the market. The older woman, in her seventies,
stays at home with the children. Both women cannot speak English. Elena does not have
problems when the young, English-speaking employers are at home. But when they are in
the office, that is when problems arise. Instructions from the older women are in Chinese.
Sign language is resorted to most of the time. But this is very difficult. Elena cannot follow
the instructions to the detail and this often angers the older women.
One noontime, the old woman instructed Elena to prepare lunch. They could not
understand each other. Elena tried to follow but everything she did was always out of place.
She tried to explain but it was useless. At the height of their misunderstanding, the women
hurled at Elena all kinds of invectives and finally slapped her. Elena did not retaliate.
In the evening, when the young employer arrived, the old woman told them that
Elena refused to obey her. This angered the wife. She confronted Elena. The latter tried to
explain but she did not want any of this. One word led to another and they quarreled. The
employer slapped Elena and pulled her hair. When the man saw this, he helped his wife and
they took turns punishing Elena.
This incident triggered similar incidents. Elena suffered much, not because she was
not competent but because she could not handle the language well. She was brought by her
employer’s sister to work at the stall in the market. Again, she messed up the business
because she could not understand what the customers wanted or were talking about. Again,
she was punished for her mistake.
Food
Food is the other source of problem of adaptation among the newly arrived Filipino
domestic hclpers. Of course, Filipinos are used to Chinese food and are very flexible
insofar as food is concerned. However, the food preparation for ordinary household
consumption is another thing. Among the reported preparation which Filipina domestic
helpers find
culturally intolerable is the use of porridge (Filipino lugaw) for meals among the Chinese,
and the peppery (maanghang) food among the Indians and Malaysians.
Food would not have been a “source of culture shock” if the maids are allowed to
cook their own food. Generally, they are forbidden to do so. They have to “make do” of
what is served in the house. Eventually the maids get adjusted but not without experiencing
difficulties along the way.
For example, most Chinese serve porridge for ordinary meals. Culturally, porridge
is served in Philippines to people who are sick or on soft. The preparation is also served as
snacks, known as goto. Porridge is not served as the regular menu for meals. However,
among the Chinese in both Singapore and Hong Kong, this is the regular meal.
Sometimes, the porridge is mixed with chicken, beef, onions and other condiments.
However, some Filipina maids report that the porridge served them “is mainly rice and
water.” To meet personal tastes, the individual may add sauce, pepper or salt.
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Most Filipina domestics complained about practice. As one maid said: “We worked
so hard and yet we are fed with lugaw. Could you imagine eating porridge in the morning, in
and evening through the week?” When they complain about this, they are reminded, “You
are not in the Philippines. You are in Singapore (or Hong Kong, as the case may be). You
better adjust.”
Aside from Chinese food, Indian, Indonesian, Malaysian food preparations are not
palatable to many Filipinas. It is “too hot for our “But that is all there is in the house and if
you do not like the preparation, then you do not have any meal at all.” Since the maids are
not allowed to cook their food separately, many survive the first few months on crackers or,
if they are fortunate to have weekends off, they buy Filipino food from snack corners and
from market places.
Loneliness
Loneliness is the first psychological problem that hits the Filipina domestic upon
arrival in a foerign country. The warmth and attention received at home are suddenly not
there. She is alone. She is warned against using the telephone for calling friends. She could
not receive calls either. Even if she is not prevented from calling friends, she knows no one.
Maybe she has friends—but they are also busy and also warned against receiving calls.
“Loneliness is the worst enemy,” said one of the maids during an interview. “It took
me five months to overcome it. That was when I started to have friends. But before that I did
not know what to do—I can only cry.”
Crying is sometimes the cause of the quarrel between Filipina domestic helpers and
their employers. Shedding tears, in conservative Chinese belief, brings bad luck to the
family. The employers cannot understand why the maids are always crying. As one
employer complained to me: “Mr. Jocano, what shall I do with my Filipina maid? She cries
in the morning, she cries at noon, she cries in the afternoon, she cries in the evening and she
cries before going to sleep. My husband is getting concerned because our business is having
difficulties.”
When I explained that perhaps they are lonely, the crisp reply was: “But why did
they come?” Loneliness is not so much a problem to single girls. But to married ones who
have left their small children, it is an ordeal. “At first,” said one of the maids, “I could not
stand it. I cried almost all day long. My employers—husband and wife—were always mad
at me. When I did not have any letter from home I felt miserable. When I received letters
from home, it was also equally miserable. I did not know what to do. I hung on to my rosary.
I prayed and prayed. Slowly, my loneliness faded away as days went by and I started to have
friends.”
228
Jealousy
The third main source of conflict between the Filipino domestic helper and her
employers, particularly the wife, is jealousy. Generally, Filipinas are fashion conscious.
They love to dress themselves, complete with fashion jewelry they could afford. It is
irrelevant whether the materials used for a dress are cheap or the jewelry are imitations.
These are worn with some elegance and taste.
Except for the well-to-do, Chinese women are conservative in their taste for fashion.
Thus, when Filipina domestic helpers accompany their employers (specifically to take care
of the children) when the latter attend social gatherings, the former looks more “beautiful
than the ama.”
This contrast makes the wife jealous. It also catches the attention of the husband and
leads to conflict. This is typified by this case.
Amelia is 24 years old. She comes from Pampanga. She has a fairly white
complexion or mestizahin, is 5’ x 4” in height, slender and with jetblack hair which she
keeps close to her shoulders. Her eyes have an oriental slant which, at a glance, make her
look like a Chinese. She sought employment as a maid in Singapore when she and her
boyfriend broke their engagement.
Her employer is a middle-aged Chinese couple. The man is fifty and the woman is
forty-nine. They have four children, mostly grown-up and have their own families. Their
grandchildren live with them.
One day, they brought the grandchildren to a country fair. Amelia dressed for the
occasion. When they reached the fair-site, she was mistaken for Mrs. Ong, her employer.
Because of her pretty looks, the aging Mr. Ong also took a fancy at Amelia. Trouble began.
Mrs. Ong became very jealous of Amelia that she refused to bring her out again. She also
accused Amelia of trying to seduce her husband.
Because of jealousy, Mrs. Ong made Amelia’s life very miserable. She would make
her work more than eight hours a day, from five o’clock in the morning to two o’clock the
following morning, especially when there is a mahjong game in the house.” In addition,
Amelia was allowed to have a day off only once a month. She was not given adequate food.
She was scolded, shouted at and humiliated in front of visitors.
When interviewed, Amelia showed flat iron marks on her arms. She said that it was
inflicted by Ms. Ong when she did not iron the latter’s dress “as good as she expected me to
do.” There were many other physical abuses. When Amelia could not take it anymore she
ran away. She sought help at the Catholic Center in Geylang Street.
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Summary and Conclusion
There are many other cases that document the cross-cultural problems met by
Filipinas in Singapore and Hong Kong. Data from other countries, like Malaysia and the
Middle East, are similar. Official reports from the Department of Labor and Employment
also record similar cases. Suffice it for the moment to state that most of the difficulties
Filipina domestic helpers meet abroad emanate from clash of cultural orientations.
The familiar ways of doing things in the Philippines signal different meanings
among the Chinese in Singapore and Hong Kong. Crying, for example, is not good for
business because tears “block the flow of money and wash away good luck.” Dirt must not
be swept away through the door. It brings bad luck. Several Filipinas interviewed said they
were dismissed because “the tip of the broom I’m using accidentally touched the feet of my
employer.” Doing this, “I was told by my employer that it would bring untold bad luck to
the family.”
There are many other cross-cultural practices which cause miscommunication and
conflict between the Filipino maids and their employers. In many occasions, they cannot
understand why they are verbally abused and physically harmed. “We try our best to
perform well, said many of them when interviewed, “but our best is not good enough. You
are not corrected so that you can learn. Basta’t sabunutan ka na lang (You are just hit).
Theoretically, even if Asian countries are the same Asiatic cultures, the nuances of
each country’s cultural orientation vary. This is when the problem lies in cross-cultural
encounters. Many of the Chinese beliefs and practices coincide with those of the
Philippines. Our exposure to the Spaniards and the Americans have altered many of our
Asiatic beliefs and thus, when people coming from these two cultures interact, they
generally do not communicate well and this often brings conflicts. It is suggested, in this
connection that to enhance cross-cultural understanding between the Filipina help and their
prospective employers in Singapore and Hong Kong, a pre-departure, cross-cultural seminar
be given as the Filipina domestic helpers. This will them on what to expect and how to
behave so that they do not become so vulnerable to exploitation and abuse abroad. Conflicts
generated by misunderstanding at the individual level can become a problem at the inter-
country level.
230
J
Mothering from a Distance: Emotions, Gender and Inter-
Generational Relations in Filipino Transnational Families
RHACEL SALAZAR PARREÑAS
An increasing number of Filipina migrants are mothering their children from a

distance. In order to provide for their families, they must leave them behind in the
Philippines and take advantage of the greater labor market opportunities in other countries
of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. One of the largest sources of independent female labor
migrants in the world, the Philippines 1
has seen the formation of a growing number of
female-headed transnational families. These families are households with core members
living in at least two nation-states and in which the mother works in another country while
some or all of her dependents reside in the Philippines. This article analyzes the emotional
consequences of geographical distance in female-headed transnational families and
examines the mechanisms by which mothers and children cope with them.
Without a doubt, mothering from a distance has emotional ramifications both for
mothers who leave and children who are sent back or left behind. The pain of family
separation creates various feelings, including helplessness, regret, and guilt for mothers and
loneliness, vulnerability, and insecurity for children. How are these feelings negotiated in
the social reproduction of the transnational family? 2 Moreover, how are these feelings
influenced by gender ideologies of mothering? The practice of mothering from a distance or
“transnational mothering,” as Pierrette Hondagneu Sotelo and Ernestine Avila have called it,
ruptures the ideological foundation of the Filipino family.3 Unlike the “split households” of
earlier Chinese, Mexican, and Filipino male migrants in the United States, the traditional
division of labor with the father in charge of production and the mother of reproduction are
contested in contemporary female-headed transnational households.4
This article examines gender and intergenerational relations through the lens of
emotion. I show that socialized gender norms in the family aggravate the emotional strains
of mothers and children in transnational families and argue that the reconstitution of
mothering led by female migrants from the Philippines is stalled by traditional ideologies of
family life. I chose emotion as the central analytical principle of this article because
emotional strains are prominent characteristics of the family life of migrant Filipina
domestic workers. Moreover, these emotional strains beg to be understood systematically.
As Arlie Hochschild has shown, emotions do not exist in a vacuum. Instead, they exist in
the context of social structures in society. As she states, “Emotion is a sense that tells about
the self-relevance of reality. We infer from it what we must have wanted or expected or how
we must have been perceiving the world. Emotion is one way to discover a buried
perspective on matters.” Regulated by “feeling rules,” emotions are determined by
ideologies,5 and in the Filipino family, as in many other families, the ideology of woman as
nurturer is a central determinant of the emotional needs and expectations of its members.6
To develop my argument, I begin by reviewing two relevant bodies of literature—one

on transnational families and the other on emotional labor. Then, I describe my research
methodology and the characteristics of my sample. To build my conceptual case, I first
discuss the structural causes of distance mothering. Second, I illustrate the emotional strains
231
engendered by the geographical distance in transnational families. Finally, I build on this by
analyzing the ways that traditional gender ideologies aggravate the intergenerational
conflicts wrought by the emotional strains of transnational family life.
Transnational Families
My discussion engages and draws from literature on the transnational family and
women’s work and emotional labor. Transnational families are neither unique to Filipino
labor migrants nor are they exclusive to present day migrants. Various studies have
documented the formation of transnational households among contemporary migrants from
the traditional sending countries of Haiti and Mexico and earlier groups of migrants in the
United States.7
Transnational families have also been given a plethora of names such as astronaut
families, bi-national families, and split households. By referring to the families in my study
as “transnational,” I draw from recent literature that illustrates how various social fields, one
of which is the family, operate through the regular circulation of goods, resources,
individuals, and information across national borders. 8
Literature on transnational families establishes that their formation is simultaneously

a structural and cultural process. Migrants form transnational households in response to
structural forces of economic globalization and, in doing so, rely on cultural resources such
as kin networks.9 Missing from the literature, however, is the analysis of the emotional
strains of parenting from a distance. At most, the strains of geographical separation, such as
emotional stress and the higher risk of permanent separation, are given only a cursory
glance1.0 Studies have also not paid attention to intergenerational relations in these
households.11 This article contributes to literature on transnational families by looking
more deeply into the emotional strains of separation and by considering the
perspective of children on transnational family life.
Emotional Labor
The discourse on social relationships in the family has, surprisingly, neglected the
emotional dimensions of family life, because emotion has often been considered “too
personal” and “treated as if it has an existence independent of the social and cultural
context.”12 To address the division of emotional work in transnational families, I turn
to literature on women’s work, particularly discussions of emotional labor.
Feminist scholarship has long contested the ideological construction that links women
to nurturance. Still, the ideology of women as caretakers continues to constrain the
productive labor activities of women in myriad ways including their sex segregation in jobs
resembling “wife-and-mother roles.” This is the case not only in the United States but also in
the Philippines1. 3 This ideology extends to the workplace in another way and that is the
greater expectation of women to provide care via emotional labor, a concept that refers to
“the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display.” 14
Emotional labor is expected in traditional female occupations such as paid domestic

work. For example, domestic workers are bound to the script of “maternalism and
deference.” 15 They are also made “proto-mothers,” expected to mother two families, their
232
own and that of their employers.16 They must provide companionship and care by acting
as confidante and giving consolation to employers. These labor demands squeeze domestic
workers of the energy and supplies needed to provide emotional care to their own families.
As one quantitative study of the links between women’s emotional labor at home and at
work concludes, the scarcity hypothesis of emotional energy applies to jobs that involve
caregiving much more than other types of jobs.17
Literature on emotional labor establishes that women are expected to nurture the
emotional well-being of people at home and at work. Confronted with geographical
distance, transnational mothers face the even greater challenge of providing emotional care
to their children. If migrant Filipina domestic workers are to remain responsible for the
emotional care of their families, children in female-headed transnational households are
prone to suffer from a “care deficit.” 18
Methodology
This article is based primarily on open-ended interviews that I collected with female
domestic workers in Rome and Los Angeles: forty-six in Rome and twenty-six in Los
Angeles. I tape-recorded and transcribed fully each of my interviews, which were mostly
conducted in Tagalog or Taglish (a hybrid of Tagalog and English), and then translated into
English. I based my study on these two cities because they are two main destinations of
Filipina migrants.
A little less than five months in Rome in 1995 and 1996 gave me ample time to
collect forty-six in-depth interviews with Filipina domestic workers. The interviews ranged
from one and one-half to three hours in length. I collected an unsystematic sample of
research participants by using chain and snowball referrals. To diversify my sample, I
solicited research participants from various sites in the community (e.g., church, parks, and
plazas).
In Los Angeles, I collected a smaller sample of twenty-six in-depth interviews with

Filipina domestic workers. These interviews range from one and one-half to three hours in
length. I collected these interviews between April and September 1996. My smaller sample
is due to the fact that, unlike their counterparts in Rome, Filipina migrants in Los Angeles
are not concentrated in the informal service sector. Another factor contributing to the smaller
sample in Los Angeles is their relatively small representation among domestic workers.
Although present in the ethnic community, Filipinas are but a minority among the larger
group of Latina domestics in the area.
In the field research site of Los Angeles, tapping into the community began with the
network of my mother’s friends and relatives. To diversify my sample, I posted flyers in
various ethnic enclave businesses. Two women responded to the flyers. Utilizing networks
of domestic workers, the sample of interviewees was collected unsystematically through a
snowball method. Participant observation provided a gateway to the community as I
attended meetings of Filipino labor groups, the occasional Filipino town fiestas and the
more frequent Filipino family parties, and spent time with domestic workers at their own
and at their employers’ homes.
233
My interviews with domestic workers provide a limited sample of children who grew
up in transnational households. None of the twenty-six women interviewed in Los Angeles
are second generation transnationals. Of the forty-six women interviewed in Rome, only six
were raised in transnational households. To gain the perspective of children, I supplement
my data using a variety of sources. First, I rely on ten in-depth interviews that I had
collected with children who grew up in transnational households. These interviews were
conducted in Los Angeles in November and December 1994. Second, I look at writings of
children featured in the transnational monthly “Tinig Filipino”. This magazine caters to
migrant Filipina domestic workers and circulates in at least a dozen countries. Most issues
feature articles and reprinted letters that voice the perspective of children on transnational
family life. Finally, I rely on the earlier cited survey conducted by Victoria Paz Cruz with
more than 300 children who are growing up with absentee migrant parents in the Philippines
and her attached supplementary survey of more than ninety guardians.
The survey of 212 high school and college students with international migrant parents
and ninety with internal migrant parents living elsewhere in the Philippines measures the
social impact of migration on the family and assesses the effects of the prolonged absence of
migrant parents on children.
Characteristics of Sample
Although there are distinguishing characteristics between my interviewees in Rome

and Los Angeles, they also share many social characteristics. Differences between them
include regional origin and median age. Interestingly, there are more similarities between
them. First, most of them are legal residents of their respective host societies. In Italy, thirty
of forty-six interviewees have a permesso di soggiorno (permit to stay), which grants them
temporary residency for seven years. Most of my informants are documented because Italy
has regularly granted amnesties to undocumented migrants. For example, the state awarded
them in 1987, 1990, 1995, and 1997. 20 With the legislation of the Martelli Law in
1990, migrant Filipina domestic workers became eligible to sponsor the migration of
their families. Nonetheless, most of my interviewees have chosen not to sponsor the
migration of their children.
In Los Angeles, fifteen of twenty-six interviewees have legal documents. Most of the
women acquired permanent legal status by marriage or the sponsorship of a wealthy
employer. Yet many have not been able to sponsor the migration of dependents, because
they have been caught in the legal bind of obtaining legal status only after their children had
reached adult age, when they are no longer eligible for immediate family reunification.
Another similarity between my interviewees in Rome and Los Angeles is their high
level of educational attainment. Most of them have acquired some years of postsecondary
training in the Philippines. In Rome, my interviewees include twenty-three women with
college degrees, twelve with some years of college or postsecondary vocational training, and
seven women who completed high school. In Los Angeles, my interviewees include eleven
women with college diplomas, eight with some years of college or postsecondary vocational
training, and five who completed high school.
Finally, more than one-half of my interviewees are married women with children. I
was surprised to stumble upon this fact, because studies have indicated that Filipina
234
migrants are usually young and single women.21 Only five of twenty-six interviewees in Los
Angeles and less than one-half (nineteen) in Rome are never married single women. Women
with children in the Philippines constitute a greater portion of my sample: twenty-five of
forty-six in Rome and fourteen of twenty-six in Los Angeles.
The median age of interviewees suggests that the children of women in Rome are
fairly young, and in Los Angeles, the children are older. The median age of my interviewees
in Los Angeles is high at fifty-two. The youngest research participant is thirty-three, while
the oldest is sixty-eight years old. What explains the extremely high median age of domestic
workers in Los Angeles? We can surprise that younger immigrant Filipino women are not
attracted to domestic work because of its isolating nature. They can choose to avoid
domestic work, because compared with other immigrant groups, their knowledge of the
English language gives them access to other types of employment. In Rome, the median age
of interviewees is thirty-one years old, significantly lower than my sample in Los Angeles.
Although only four women fall under the age of twenty-five, the oldest woman is sixty-six
years old.
In contrast to the trend for shorter periods of separation among Mexican migrant
families, the duration of separation among Filipina migrant domestic workers extends to
more than two years for most families, usually encompassing the entire duration of
settlement. 22 Significantly, parents with legal documents return to the Philippines
sporadically. On average, they visit their children every four years for a period of two
months. They attribute the infrequency of their return to the high cost of airfare and to the
fact they cannot afford to take time off work. In addition, the fear of losing their jobs
prevents them from visiting their families for an extended period of time. As they are
limited to short visits to the Philippines, traveling is seen as an excessive expense of funds
that could otherwise be used on meeting the costs of reproducing the family.
The Structural Context of Mothering from a Distance
The globalization of the market economy has triggered a high demand for female
workers from developing nations, such as the Philippines, to supply low-wage service labor
in more developed nations. In postindustrial nations such as the United States and Italy, their
low-wage service labor (e.g., hotel housekeeping and domestic work) is needed by the
growing professional population in global cities, meaning new economic centers where
specialized professional services (e.g., legal, financial, accounting, and consulting services)
are concentrated.23 In newly industrialized countries, such as Taiwan and Malaysia,
globalization and the rise of manufacturing production has also generated a demand for low-
wage service migrant workers. Production activities in these economies have subsumed the
traditional proletariat female work force who would otherwise perform low-wage service
jobs such as domestic work. This shift in labor market concentration has generated a need
for the lower wage labor of women from neighboring countries in Asia to fill the demand for
service employment.24
In globalization, even though the “denationalized” economy demands the low-wage

service labor of female migrants, the “renationalized” society neither wants the
responsibility for the reproductive costs of these workers nor grants them the membership
accorded by the contributions of their labor to the economic growth of receiving nations.25
The entrance of migrant Filipina domestic workers into the global economy is wrought by
235
structural constraints that restrict their incorporation into receiving nations. For example,
various countries limit the term of their settlement to temporary labor contracts and deny
entry to their spouses and children2.6 As a result, migrant Filipina domestic workers
with children are forced to mother from a distance.
Receiving nations curb the integration of migrant Filipina domestic workers so as to

guarantee to their economies a secure source of low-wage labor. By containing the costs of
reproduction in sending countries, wages of migrant workers can be kept to a minimum.
Moreover, by restricting the incorporation of migrants, receiving nations can secure for their
economies a supply of low-wage workers who could easily be repatriated if the economy is
slow.
Sending the message that only the production and not the reproduction of their labor
is desired, nations such as Singapore and Malaysia prohibit the marriage or cohabitation of
migrant Filipina domestic workers with native citizens. 27 Pregnancy is furthermore
prohibited for Filipina migrants in the Middle East and Asia2.8 The liberal states of the
United States and Italy are not exempt from the trend of “renationalization.” In the United
States, for example, lawmakers are entertaining the promotion of temporary labor migration
and the elimination of certain preference categories for family reunification, including the
preference categories for adult children and parents of U.S. citizens and permanent
residents, the trend being to continue the labor provided by migrants but to discontinue
support for their reproduction. In Italy, the “guest worker” status of migrant Filipinos
coupled with their restricted options in the labor market encourages the maintenance of
transnational households.
Only in a few countries are migrant Filipina domestic workers eligible for family
reunification. They include Canada, the United States, and Italy. However, many structural
factors deter migrant Filipina domestic workers in these countries from sponsoring the
migration of their children. For instance, the occupational demands of domestic work make
it difficult for them to raise their children in these host societies. In Italy, low wages force
most day workers to work long hours. In the United States, most of my research informants
are live-in domestic workers. As such, their work arrangement limits the time that they can
devote to the care of their own families.
Consequently, as I have argued elsewhere, the increasing demand for migrant women
to alleviate the reproductive labor of the growing number of working women in
postindustrial nations has sparked the formation of an international division of reproductive
labor. Under this system, migrant Filipina domestic workers perform the reproductive labor
of class-privileged women in industrialized countries and are forced to leave their children
behind in the Philippines. Many in turn have had to hire other women in the Philippines to
perform their own household work. In fact, many of the women in my study employ paid
domestic workers to care for their families in the Philippines. In this sense, we can see the
formation of a three-tier chain of the commodification of mothering between middle-class
women in the United States and Italy; migrant Filipina domestic workers; and Filipina
domestic workers in the Philippines who are too poor to afford the costs of emigration.
Filipina migrants leave or send children back to the Philippines in order to mediate
other structural forces of globalization, including the unequal level of economic
development between sending and receiving nations and the rise of anti-immigrant
sentiments. Negotiating the unequal development of regions in the global economy, migrant
236
Filipina domestic workers mother from a distance to take advantage of the lower costs of
reproducing, feeding, housing, clothing, and educating the family in the Third World. In
doing so, they are able to provide their families with a secure middle-class lifestyle. The
lesser costs of reproduction in sending countries, such as the Philippines, enable them to
provide greater material benefits for their children, including the luxury of paid domestic
help and more comfortable housing as opposed to cramped living quarters forced by high
rents in global cities. In this way, the family can expedite its goals of accumulating savings
and property.
Migrants also form transnational households in response to the pressure of nativism in

receiving societies. Nativist grassroots organizations (e.g., Americans for Immigration
Control and Legalin Northern Italy) aimed at the further restriction and exclusion of
immigration have sprouted throughout the United States and Italy. With anti-immigrant
sentiments brewing, migrant parents may not want to expose their children to the racial
tensions and anti-immigrant sentiments fostered by the social and cultural construction of
low-wage migrants as undesirable citizens. These structural constraints prolong the length of
family separation in migration as it may even extend to a span of a life cycle. Among my
interviewees, for example, the length of separation between mothers and their now adult
children extends to sixteen years.
The Pain of Mothering from a Distance
When the girl that I take care of calls her mother “Mama,” my heart jumps all the
time because my children also call me “Mama.”... I begin thinking that at this hour I should
be taking care of my very own children and not someone else’s, someone who is not related
to me in any way, shape, or form... The work that I do here is done for my family, but the
problem is they are not close to me but are far away in the Philippines. Sometimes, you feel
the separation and you start to cry. Some days, I just start crying while I am sweeping the
floor because I am thinking about my children in the Philippines. Sometimes, when I receive
a letter from my children telling me that they are sick, I look up out the window and ask the
Lord to look after them and make sure they get better even without me around to care after
them. (Starts crying.) If I had wings, I would fly home to my children. Just for a moment, to
see my children and take care of their needs, help them, then fly back over here to continue
my work. (Author’s emphasis.) (Rosemarie Samaniego, widowed, Rome, migrated in 1991,
children are ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and nineteen years old.) 31
Everyday Filipina domestic workers such as Rosemarie Samaniego are overwhelmed

by feelings of helplessness: they are trapped in the painful contradiction of feeling the
distance from their families and having to depend on the material benefits of their
separation. They may long to reunite with their children but cannot, because they need their
earnings to sustain their families.
Emotional strains of transnational mothering include feelings of anxiety, helplessness,

loss, guilt, and the burden of loneliness. Mothers negotiate these emotional strains in three
central ways: the commodification of love; the repression of emotional strains; and the
rationalization of distance, that is, they use regulation communication to ease distance. In
general, individual women use all three coping mechanisms, although not always
consciously. For the most part, they justify their decision to leave their children behind in
the Philippines by highlighting the material gains of the family. And they struggle to
237
maintain a semblance of family life by rationalizing distance. Although a few women
explicitly deny the emotional strains imposed by separation on their children, most women
admit to the emotional difficulties that they themselves feel.
Knowing that they have missed the growing years of children, mothers admit
experiencing loss of intimacy in transnational families. In general, a surreal timelessness is
felt during separation that is suddenly catapulted back to reality the moment the family
reunites.
When I came home, my daughters were teenagers already. (Starts crying.)

When I saw my family, I dropped my bag and asked who were my daughters. I did
not know who they were but they just kept on screaming “Inay, Inay!” [Mom,
Mom!] I asked them who was who and they said “I’m Sally and I’m Sandra.” We
were crying. I did not know who was who. Imagine! But they were so small when I
left and there they were as teenagers... (Ermie Contado, widowed, Rome, migrated
in 1981, daughters followed her in early 1990s.)
Confronted with the absence of familiarity, transnational mothers often feel an

unsurmountable loss over their prolonged separation from their children.
For the women in my study, this pain is usually aggravated by caretaking tasks of
domestic work. Taking care of children is not just taking care of children when, in the
process of doing so, one cannot take care of one’s own children. This contradiction
accentuates the pain of domestic work and results in their simultaneous aversion and desire
for this job. Ruby Mercado, a domestic worker, states: “Domestic work is depressing... you
especially miss your children. I do not like taking care of other children when I could not
take care of my own. It hurts too much.” Although a few domestic workers resolve this
tension by avoiding childcare, many also resolve it by “pouring love,” including Trinidad
Borromeo, who states, “When I take care of an elderly, I treat her like she is my own
mother.”
As I have noted, transnational mothers cope with the emotional tensions of mothering
from a distance by commodifying love. In the field, I often heard women say: “I buy
everything that my children need.” or “I give them everything they want.” Transnational
parents knowingly or unknowingly have the urge to overcompensate for their absence with
material goods. Ruby Mercado states:
All the things that my children needed I gave to them and even more because
I know that I have not fulfilled my motherly duties completely. Because we were
apart (since 1983), there have been needs that I have not met. I try to hide that gap
by giving them all the material things that they desire and want. I feel guilty
because as a mother I have not been able to care for their daily needs. So, because I
am lacking in giving them maternal love, I fill that gap with many material goods…
Unable to provide her four children (now between the ages of eighteen and twenty-
six) with daily acts of caregiving, Ruby, not unlike other transnational mothers, feels
insecure about the emotional bonds in her family. As a result, she has come to rely on
commodities to establish concrete ties of familiar dependency.
238
Transnational parents struggle with and do have regrets over separation, but they are
able to with stand these hardships because of the financial gains that they have achieved in
migration.
I have been lonely here. I have thought about the Philippines while I am
scrubbing and mopping that floor. You cannot help but ask yourself what are you
doing here scrubbing and being apart from your family. Then, you think about the
money and know that you have no choice but to be here. (Incarnacion Molina,
separated, Rome, migrated in 1991, two daughters in late adolescence.)
By working outside of the Philippines, parents obtain the financial resources that they
need to ensure that their children eat daily meals of meat and rice, attend college, and have
secure housing.
Although many migrant laborers outside of the Philippines have attained some years
of post secondary education, they have not been able to achieve a “secure” middle-class
lifestyle in the Philippines. So, why do they bother to invest in their children’s college
education? The education of children is a marker of material security for migrant parents. It
is a central motivating factor for migration. As a domestic worker states, “The intelligence
of my children would be wasted if they don’t attain a college degree, that’s why I made up
my mind and I prayed a lot that I have a chance to go abroad for the sake of my children’s
education.” Parents believe that the more educated children there are in their families,
32
the greater the resources of the family and the lesser the dependence of family members on
each other, which means there would be less need for a family member to work outside
of the Philippines in order to support other members of the family.
Migrant mothers also cope with separation by repressing the emotional tensions in
transnational families. Considering that larger structural forces of globalization deny
migrant Filipina domestic workers the right to family reunification, they sometimes cannot
afford to confront their feelings. As Dorothy Espiritu—a widowed domestic worker in Los
Angeles who left her four (now adult) children between the ages of nine and eighteen—
explains, lingering over the painful sacrifice of separation only intensifies the emotional
hardships of providing the family with material security.
In answer to my question of whether it has been difficult not seeing her children for
twelve years, she answered:
If you say it is hard, it is hard. You could easily be overwhelmed by the loneliness
you feel as a mother, but then you have to have the foresight to overcome that.
Without the foresight for the future of your children, then you have a harder time. If
I had not had the foresight, my children would not be as secure as they are now.
They would not have had a chance. (Pauses.) What I did was I put the loneliness
aside. I put everything aside. I put the sacrifice aside. Everything, Now, I am happy
that all of them have completed college.
Although mothers usually admit that emotional strains are en•gendered by

geographical distance, they also tend to repress them. In fact, some of my interviewees
strategically cope with physical distance by completely denying its emotional costs. It had
239
primarily been mothers who had two sets of children, one in the Philippines and the other
abroad, who preferred not to discuss intergenerational relationships at all.
Despite their tendency to downplay the emotional tensions wrought by the formation
of transnational households, migrant mothers struggle to amend this loss by regularly
keeping in contact with their children in the Philippines. To fulfill their mothering role from
afar, they compress time and space and attempt to counter the physical distance in the family
via the telephone and letter writing. Most of my interviewees phone and write their children
at least once every two weeks. In doing so, they keep abreast of their children’s activities
and at the same time achieve a certain level of familiarity and intimacy. As Patricia
Baclayon of Los Angeles states: “There is nothing wrong with our relationship. I pay a lot
for the phone bill. Last month, I paid $170 and that’s two days of wages. They write too.
Last week, I received four letters.”
Ironically, the rationalization of transnational distance in the family, while reassuring

for parents, could be stifling for children in the Philippines. At the very least, parents are
more likely to consider prolonging separation, as they are reassured that separation is
manageable and does not mean the loss of intimacy. The “power geometry” in the process of
time-space compression is elucidated by feminist geographer Doreen Massey as having
created distinct experiences:
This point concerns not merely the issue of who moves and who doesn’t, although
that is an important element of it; it is also about power in relation to the flows and the
movement. Different social groups [in this case mothers and children] have distinct
relationships to this anyway differentiated mobility: some people are more in charge of it
than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the
receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it.” 33
In transnational families, power clearly lies with the parent, in particular the migrant
parent. The process of time-space compression is unidirectional with children at the
receiving end. Migrant parents initiate calls as children receive them. Migrant parents remit
money to children physically immobilized in the Philippines. Children are trapped as time-
space compression convinces parents that they have maintained close-knit ties and allows
them to keep their children waiting even longer.
From the commodification of love to the “technological” management of distance,

my interviewees have found many ways to cope with family separation. Although they ease
the barriers that spatial distance has imposed on their families, many still feel that intimacy
can only be fully achieved with great investment in time and daily interactions in the family.
The Pain of Growing Up in Transnational Families
Regardless of household structure, whether it is nuclear, single parent, or

transnational, intergenerational conflicts frequently arise in the family. As many feminist
scholars have argued, the family is not a collective unit. Instead, the family represents an
institution with conflicting interests, priorities, and concerns for its members. In
240
transnational households, intergenerational conflicts are engendered by the emotional strains
of family life.
Children also suffer from the emotional costs of geographical distance with feelings
of loneliness, insecurity, and vulnerability. They also crave greater intimacy with their
migrant parents. For example, the children in Victoria Paz Cruz’s survey offer several
reasons for their desire to reunite with their migrant parents: “I want them to share with us
in our daily life and I want our family to be complete”; “So that they will be there when we
need them”; and “We can share our laughters and tears3.4” Denied the intimacy of
daily interactions, children struggle to understand the motives behind their mothers’ decision
to raise them from a distance. Unfortunately, they do not necessarily do so successfully.
Three central conflicts plague intergenerational relationships between migrant
mothers and the children whom they have left behind in the Philippines. First, children
disagree with their mothers that commodities are sufficient markers of love. Second, they do
not believe that their mothers recognize the sacrifices that children have made toward the
successful maintenance of the family. Finally, although they appreciate the efforts of
migrant mothers to show affection and care, they still question the extent of their efforts.
They particularly question mothers for their sporadic visits to the Philippines. As I have
noted, most of the mothers whom I interviewed return to the Philippines infrequently, once
every four years.
For the most part, children recognize the material gains provided by separation. The
survey of Paz Cruz, for instance, indicates that around 60 percent of children do not wish for
their parents to stop working abroad. Nonetheless, they are not as convinced as are their
mothers that financial stability is worth the emotional costs of separation. Claribelle Ignacio,
a thirty-six year old, single, domestic worker in Rome, laments the loss of intimacy in her
family:
My mother went to the United States and worked as a domestic worker... She
went to the States for a long time, when I was still young. I was separated from her
for a long time but she did go home every year. She just wanted to go to the States
to be able to provide a good future for us... I can say that it is very different to be
away from the mother. Even if you have everything, I can say your family is broken.
Once the father, mother, and children no longer have communication, even if you
are materially stable, it is better to be to•gether. If a child wants material goods,
they also want maternal love. That is still important. When I was a kid, I realized
that it is better if we stayed together and my parents carried regular day jobs... It is
best if the family stays whole, as whole as it can be.
For children left behind in the Philippines, “staying together” and keeping the family
“whole” are worth much more than achieving financial security. Children, however, can
make such sweeping claims more easily, because the material security provided by migrant
parents affords them the luxury of demanding greater emotional security; it is highly
unlikely that impoverished children would make similar demands.
A theme that resonates in the writings of children in Tinig Filipino is the calling for
the return of migrating mothers. Children usually place their argument in either or terms:
“money or family.” 35 For example, a letter written by a son reads: “Mom, come home. Even
241
if it means that I will no longer receive new toys or chocolates. Even if it means that I
won’t get new clothes anymore, just36
being close to you will make me happy. Dad and I
are so lonely here without you.” The binary construction of “money or family”
suggests that children consider these two to be mutually exclusive choices for their
mothers. It also suggests that mothers care more about money than family.
A letter written by Nina Rea Arevalo to her mother indicates that children recognize
that mothers sacrifice the intimacy of family life for the sake of their children’s material
security. Despite this fact, children like Nina still demand the return of their mothers.
They reason that the emotional gratification brought by the intimacy of everyday life
is worth more than material security:
My dear mother:
How are you over there? Us, we’re here wishing you were with us... Mom, I was still
very young when you left me with Kuya [older brother], Ate [older sister] and Dad. I
still did not know the meaning of sadness...
Do you know that they would cry when they read your letters? Me, I would just look
at them. I grew up actually believing that letters are supposed to be read while
crying.
Mom, I am older now and I know how to read and write. How many Christmases
have passed since I was born? I still have not experienced this day with you with me.
I know that you love us very much and that you sacrifice and suffer being away from
us so that you could meet our needs. That is why we love you completely and so
much.
Mom, I am getting older and I need someone guiding and supporting me and that is
you. I don’t want to be rich. Instead I want you with me, Mom. Doesn’t God say that a
family should always be together through hardships and happiness? But why are you
far away from us?
Mom, Christmas is here again. That’s why you should come home soon. I don’t want
anything else but you with me, Mom.
Kuya and Ate read somewhere that Filipino workers in other shores are the heroes of
our country. But Mom, come back and you will be the queen that I will be with every
day.
My wish is that you come home this coming
Christmas. Your youngest child, Nina Rea 37
The poignant letter expresses the disposition of children in transnational families:

they hunger for emotional bonds with absentee parents and wish for the intimacies of
everyday interactions.
242
Children want their mothers to return to the Philippines in order to amend the
emotional distance wrought by separation. For many, such as Evelyn Binas, geographical
distance has created an irreparable gap in intergenerational relations. After graduating from
college with a degree in computer science in 1994, Evelyn joined her mother in Rome,
where they live in a room in the home of her mother’s employer. Left in the Philippines at
the age of ten with her father, brother, and sister, Evelyn still holds a deep-seated resentment
against her mother. When asked if she was close to her mother, Evelyn replied:
No. There is still a gap between us. We got used to not having a mother, even
my brother and sister in the Philippines... I was independent. I always felt that I
didn’t need someone guiding me... Even though we are [now] living together, there
is still this gap... My mother came home when I was in my second and fourth year of
high school and then fourth year of college... When my mother was home, we felt
that our house was too crowded. We never stayed—we always went out. Whenever
she was there, we never stayed home.
Do you think that you will ever be close to your mom?
No, not really. I don’t think that I will really know how to open up to her... She
should have gone home more frequently (author’s emphasis). In Christmas, I hated
the fact that our family was not complete and I would see other families together. I
don’t think that we needed to come here to survive as a family. I see the homeless
surviving together in the Philippines and if they are surviving, why did my mother
have to come here? My classmates were so jealous of me because of all my designer
things. They tell me that they envy me because my mom is abroad. I tell them:
“Fine, she is abroad but we are not complete.” Since the fourth grade, this is the
first time that I actually spent Christmas with my mother...
In contrast to other children, Evelyn asserts that she never looked forward to seeing
her mother, yet believes that “she should have gone home more frequently.” Evelyn resents
her mother for rarely coming back to the Philippines. Although unable to express her
feelings fully, Evelyn cites the presence of a “gap” that hinders her ability to communicate
with and relate to her mother. Bitter about her mother’s prolonged absence from her life,
Evelyn is sadly resigned to a permanent emotional rift between them.
Although the weakening of emotional links in transnational families can be eased by

the efforts of mothers to communicate with and visit their children regularly, they can also
be tempered by the support provided by extended kin. Jane Sapin, for example, grew up
(from age six on) with her grandmother, when her mother, followed by her father after two
years, began working in Italy. Almost eighteen by the time she joined her parents and sisters
in Rome, Jane found support and security from her extended family in the Philippines:
It was not hard growing up without my parents because I grew up with my

grandmother. So it wasn’t so bad. I’m sure there was a time when there were affairs
that you should be accompanied by your parents. That’s what I missed.
…I wasn’t angry with them. At that early age, I was mature. I used to tell my
mother that it was fine that we were apart, because we were eventually going to be
243
reunited… I see my mother having sacrificed for our sake so that she could support
us financially…
Even at a young age in the Philippines, Jane had already acknowledged the sacrifices
of her parents, especially her mother, and had been secure in the knowledge that her parents
sought employment abroad not just for their personal interests but also for the collective
interest of the family. In contrast to Evelyn Binas, Jane does not resent her mother for
visiting the family infrequently but in fact sees that her few visits, the first being when Jane
was already ten years old, entailed sacrifices that she undertook for the sake of her children.
The extended family provides tremendous support to transnational families. Among my
interviewees, it is mostly other relatives and not fathers who care for the children left behind
in the Philippines. Of those in Los Angeles with young dependents, seven have their
children cared for by other relatives, usually grandparents or female relatives, and five have
them cared for by fathers. In Rome, nine women left their children with fathers and
seventeen left them with other relatives.
Even with the presence of other relatives, insecurities still arise among the children
left behind in the Philippines. Between the ages of five and ten, Cesar Gregorio, a college
student in the United States, had lived in the Philippines without either of his parents. He
recalls growing up “feeling insecure,” because he didn’t know when he was going to see his
parents again. By bearing the insecurities generated by parental absence, children such as
Cesar sacrifice for the transnational family’s success. Thus, children also want parents to
recognize the sacrifices that they make to keep the family intact through separation:
But I don’t blame my parents for my fate today, because they both sacrifice
just to give us our needs and I just got my part... And now, I realize that having a
parent abroad may be a financial relief. But it also means a lot more. The overseas
contract worker suffers lots of pain. They really sacrifice a lot. But, hey, please
don’t forget that your kids also have lots of sacrifices to give, aside from growing up
without a parent. Specifically, for those who thought that sending money is enough
and they’ve already done their responsibilities, well, think again, because there are
more than this. Your children need your love, support, attention, and affection. You
can still be with your children although you really are not. You can let them feel you
can be their best friends. And that you’re still beside them no matter what, because
distance is not a hindrance to a better relationship... It’s not only one person who
suffers when an overseas contract worker leaves for abroad. All his or her loved
ones do. And the children are the first on the list. The whole family bears the aches
and pains just to achieve a better future.
Childhood in transnational families does not just entail the luxury of receiving
monthly remittances and care packages but also includes the often unrecognized hardship of
receiving less “love, support, attention, and affection.”
Children recognize the efforts of their mothers to provide emotional and material care
from a far. They know that their mothers call regularly and remit funds every month.
However, they still want their mothers to return to the Philippines. This is regardless of the
efforts of mothers to maintain ties with their children. For example, both Claribelle Ignacio,
whose mother returned to the Philippines every year, and Evelyn Binas, whose mother
returned far less frequently, share the opinion that they would rather have had their mothers
244
work in the Philippines. They both insist that by not returning home, their mothers failed to
recognize the emotional difficulties of the children whom they had left behind.
Based on the writings in Tinig Filipino and my interviews with children, it seems that
children are not convinced that emotional care can be completely provided by the support of
extended kin, the financial support of migrant mothers, and weekly telephone conversations.
As an eighteen year old female college student in Paz Cruz’s survey suggests, “guidance,
attention, love, and care” can only be completely given by “family togetherness”:
I will tell my friend to convince her mother not to go abroad but to look for a
profitable means of livelihood such as planting, embroidery, etc. Two years being
with the family is more worthy compared to the dollars she might earn abroad. Is it
enough to show our love in terms of wealth? I think it’s not. We need the warmth of
love of our fellowmen, especially our parents. We need their guidance, attention,
love, and care to live happily and contented. I will make her mother realize the
value of family togetherness... If only all Filipinos aim to have a simple life, not the
luxurious one, then, there is no need to leave our country to earn more money.39
Children seem to have this ingrained desire for their mothers to return “home,”
suggesting that mothers are somehow at fault for working outside the Philippines. In the
next section, I further deconstruct the emotional insecurities of children so as to explain
why. My discussion shows that the tendency of children to view transnational mothering as
an insufficient way of providing emotional care in the family emerges from socialized
expectations of traditional mothering. I argue that the intergenerational conflicts engendered
by emotional tensions in transnational households are aggravated by the traditional
ideological system of the patriarchal nuclear family.
Emotions and Gender in Transnational Families
The material and emotional interests in the social institution of the family are shaped
and guided by an underlying ideological system.40Ideology, according to Stuart Hall, refers
“to those images, concepts, and premises which provide the frameworks through which we
represent, interpret, understand, and ‘make sense’ of some aspect of social existence.”41 As
a final discussion, I propose that the emotional interests of the children of migrant
Filipina domestic workers are ideologically determined. This is a springboard to further
explore the painful feelings of mothers and children in transnational households.
I specifically wish to excavate the social category of gender and map its influence on
the emotional tensions affecting mothers and children in transnational families. In this
section, I argue that the gender division of labor in the Filipino nuclear family, with fathers
expected to economically sustain the family and mothers to reproduce family life, generates
the emotional stress in transnational families. In contrast to other Asian countries, the
Philippines has a more egalitarian gender structure. For example, the kinship system is
bilateral and women have a comparable level of educational attainment to men. Moreover,
women have a high rate of participation in the productive labor force. In fact, by 1994,
women constituted 60 percent of deployed overseas contract workers from the Philippines.43
Despite the more egalitarian gender structure in the 44
Philippines, ideological constructs of
feminine identity still follow the cult of domesticity.
245
In fact, the denial of maternal love is regarded as child abuse in the diaspora. As a
domestic worker states: “Just [by] leaving [children] in the custody of fathers or
relatives, we have already abused them. We have denied them their right of a motherly love
and care.” 45 In the Philippines, transnational households are considered
“abnormal,” called ‘broken homes,” and therefore viewed as a social and cultural tragedy. 46
Transnational households are considered ‘broken” because the maintenance of this
household diverges from traditional expectations of cohabitation in the family; they do not
meet the traditional division of labor in the family, and they swerve from traditional
practices of socialization in the family. The socialization of children is expected to
come from direct parental supervision as well as from other adults, but the
geographic distance in transnational households impedes the ability of mothers to
provide direct supervision to their children.47 To downplay the formation of ‘broken
homes,” the government claims that most of their “economic heroes” are in fact non-
mothers (i.e., men or single women). It seems that it was not until the mid-1980s with the
larger flow of female migration did the “problem” of the “broken home” turn into a
national crisis. In the early 1970s to early 1980s, when men still dominated the flow
of migration, the traditional ideological foundation of the family remained stable.
Migration did not question the division of labor in the family as husbands
continued to economically sustain family life while mothers reproduced it. The spatial
division of labor remained unchanged with the father earning wages outside the physical
confines of the home and the mother nurturing the protective environment of this space.
The out migration of women, including many mothers, broke down this traditional
division of labor, leaving many to wonder how one could leave fathers the primary
parent responsible for reproducing the family. Such an “abnormal” arrangement clearly
illustrates that the Filipino family is in fact now ‘broken” because it no longer fits the ideal
nuclear household model.
A striking image on the December 1994 cover of Tinig Filipino shows a Filipino
family surrounded with traditional holiday decor. The father, clutching a sleeping baby with
his right hand, raises the traditional Christmas lantern by the window as his other son, who
looks around five years old, holds on to a stuffed animal next to his older sister in her early
teens. The family portrait evokes a feeling of holiday celebration as the caption states:
“Pamilya’y Masaya Kung Sama-sama” (The family is happy when everyone is together).
Yet, the picture is not supposed to call forth an image of celebration but directs the viewers
to think of a ‘broken family’ as a very small, highlighted subcaption strategically placed
next to the family portrait asks in Italian: “Perodov’e mamma?” (but where is mama?). The
sub-caption reminds readers that a mother, not a father, is supposed to be rocking the
children to sleep. The image is supposed to invoke a feeling of loss as the man, not the
woman, cares for the family.
Although the prolonged absence of either a father or a mother leads to emotional

costs, including emotional distance, in the family, the transnational family of women
working outside the Philippines is often construed as more pathological. In the study of Paz
Cruz, she found that 82.8 percent of the 302 students in her survey would advise their
friends to “allow your parents to work abroad,” 48 but the breakdown of responses
actually shows that 59.5 percent would advise friends to allow their fathers to go
abroad, 19.7 percent would advise both parents, and only 3.6 percent would advise
friends’ mothers to work abroad.48 Children are clearly less comfortable growing up with
an absentee mother as only 3.6 percent of the students would advise friends to allow
their mothers to work abroad. Paz Cruz’s findings should be clarified, for most children
only seem comfortable with the idea of a father working outside the Philippines.
246
The responses given by the youth to the question of what advice they would give
friends whose parents are considering employment outside the Philippines also seem to fall
within the grid of traditional gender norms in the family.
Mother as nurturer: I’ll advise my friend not to allow her mother to go abroad. It’s
better that her father go because mothers can’t do what fathers do. Mothers are closer to
their children than the father. She’s always present in times of difficulties and problems.49
Father as breadwinner: I’ll try to make her understand that it is the obligation of the
father to provide for the family. With the present situation of the country, it’s understandable
that the father will look for greener pastures. They want the best for their children. I’ll tell
her she’s lucky, her father is sacrificing to give them a good education and a good home.50
These comments clearly follow the traditional gender division of labor of the
patriarchal nuclear family. Notably, the ideological construction of the family controls not
just the opinions of children but also their feelings and emotions concerning family
separation.
In my study, most families with young children fall under the category of one-parent
abroad transnational family. Yet based on interviews with children and writings published in
Tinig Filipino, children in transnational families generally claim that maternal absence has
denied them the emotional care expected of the family. Claribelle Ignacio’s earlier
comments (“if a child wants material goods, they also want maternal love,”) emphasizes the
interplay of emotions and gender. The gender expectation of mothers to provide emotional
care and “maternal love” is what is denied of more and more children in the Philippines.
Yet, children’s feelings of emotional insecurity are only exacerbated by the belief that
mothers are the only ones fit to provide care. The question then concerns whether fathers in
the Philippines are able to provide the “maternal love” sorely missing from their children’s
lives, if women are capable of assisting them with their ideologically prescribed role as the
income producer. Unfortunately, fathers seem to avoid this responsibility. As I have noted,
fathers are less apt to care for their children than are other female relatives.
What happens if fathers do provide emotional care to their children? Although I do

not want to underplay the pain of children in transnational households, I question the
poignant pleas for emotional security of those whose fathers are present in their everyday
lives. Recall Nina Rea, who reminded her mother that she left her when she was too young
to read and write: “Mom, I am getting older and I need someone guiding and supporting me
and that is you. I don’t want to be rich. Instead I want you with me, Mom.” As she asks her
mother to return to the Philippines and finally to give her the “guidance” and “support” she
has long been denied, I have to wonder what the father in the Philippines is doing. Why
does he not give the much needed support to his daughter? Why can she not turn to him for
the guidance expected of parents in the family? Is he not even trying to provide care, or does
his daughter not recognize the care that he gives to his children?
Unlike Nina Rea, Evelyn Binas recognizes that her father has nurtured and
emotionally cared for her since the fourth grade but nonetheless still fails to appreciate her
247
mother for economically sustaining the family with her earnings as a domestic worker in
Rome.
Since the fourth grade, my mother has been here in Rome. My father looked after
me... Everyone had a mother while I was the only one without one. It was only my father
around for me. Like in graduation, it would be my father putting the medals on me. I
remember my father always being there for me. During lunch, he would bring me over some
food.
Did he work?
No. He sometimes did some work. We had some land with fruits and vegetables. He
would go there to harvest... So, he would do that work but not all the time.
Beneath her long enumeration of all the family work of her very caring father is her
silence about the contributions of her mother to the family and the underlying suggestion
that her mother failed to perform the work that she should have done. In families such as
Evelyn’s, I have to wonder if a shift and breakdown of ideological norms would lead to a
different take on the emotional costs of separation.
In sharp contrast to Evelyn’s continued resentment of her mother, even though she
was raised by a very loving father, and in contrast to the bitter feelings children generally
feel about transnational mothers, is the more blasé attitude of Rodney Catorce regarding the
absence of his father throughout his childhood:
I have always thought about it, my Dad being so far away from us for more
than ten years now. I mean, how could he? I was barely eight years old when he left
us to work abroad. He had to because he and Mom were having a hard time trying
to make both ends meet for our family... Sometimes I wonder what if Dad didn’t
gamble his luck abroad... Well, undoubtedly, we would not have missed him that
much. He would not have missed us that much... He would have seen us grow up.
Too bad, he was not able to. But then again, we would not be where we are now. We
would not be living in our own house... I and my brothers and sisters would not be
studying in great schools. Daddy would not have been a good provider... All these
considered, I am glad he did. True, he is away, but so what? 51
Recognizing the economic contributions of his father to the family and having been
secure with the presence of his mother in the Philippines, Rodney did not experience a
breakdown of the traditional division of labor in the family, a fact that seems to enable him
to pose the question: “[My dad] is away, but so what?” quite easily.
The reconstitution of gender ideologies in the family would not lessen the sacrifices
of children in transnational families but would temper the pain of separation. By this I do
not mean to imply that a shift in gender ideology would eliminate the emotional difficulties
engendered by separation. Instead, I wish to suggest that children may come to appreciate
the efforts of mothers to provide material care and a reconstituted form of emotional care
from a distance. Moreover, they may begin to demand less family labor from their migrant
mothers. For instance, they would not expect mothers to be primarily responsible for both
the material and emotional care in the family. At the same time, they may achieve greater
248
emotional security from the care provided by extended kin and, for some, the fathers left
behind in the Philippines. The impassioned pleas of children for emotional care have to be
understood within its ideological framework, which surprisingly has not shifted along with
the drastic change in the gender division of labor instigated by the migration of women in so
many families.
Conclusion
Although enabling the family to maximize its earnings, the formation of female-
headed transnational households also involves an emotional upheaval in the lives of
transnational mothers and the children whom they have left behind in the Philippines. A
central paradox in the maintenance of such households is the achievement of financial
security going hand in hand with an increase in emotional insecurity, an impact that could
however be softened by an alteration of the traditional gender ideologies in the family.
In mapping out the emotional wounds imposed by geographical distance on mothers

and children in transnational households, I do not mean to imply that these wounds can only
be healed by the return of migrating mothers. Nor do I mean to suggest that mothers are
somehow at fault for deciding to maximize their earning potential by working abroad and
leaving children behind in the Philippines. The root causes of these wounds extend beyond
the individual female migrant to larger structural inequalities that constrain the options that
they have to provide their children with material, emotional, and moral care to the fullest.
Various structural inequalities of globalization force them to sacrifice their emotional needs
and those of their children for the material needs of the family. These inequalities include
legal barriers preventing the migration of dependents; social stratification and the
segregation of Filipino migrant workers to informal service employment in most host
societies; economic globalization and the unequal level of development among nations; post
industrialization and the demand for female migrant workers; and the rise of anti-immigrant
sentiments in receiving nations.
These emotional wounds are telling of the “stalled revolution” faced by women at the
beginning of this millennium as they have yet to achieve full gender parity at home and at
work.52The ideological foundation of the Filipino family has yet to experience a major
rupture even with the high rate of women’s labor force participation. The responsibility for
emotional care remains with women even in families with fathers who provide a tremendous
amount of emotional care to their children and mothers who give a great deal of material
care. It is true that feelings of pain in transnational families are fostered by separation;
however, they are undoubtedly intensified by the failure in a great number of families to
meet the gender-based expectations of children for mothers (and not fathers) to nurture them
and also the self• imposed expectations of mothers to follow culturally and ideologically
inscribed duties in the family. As shown by the emotional tensions wrought by separation
and the greater resentment of children about transnational mothers, rather than fathers,
traditional notions of mothering haunt migrant women transnationally. Traditional views
still have a deep hold on the most basic values of the youth in the Philippines. However, we
can only hope that the “reconstitution of mothering” led by numerous female migrants from
the Philippines will eventually seep into and shift the consciousness, values, and ideologies
of the general public toward the acceptance of multiple variances of family life.
249
Notes
This article benefited from comments and suggestions shared by Arlie Hochschild, Charlotte Chiu,
Angela Gallegos, Mimi Motoyoshi, Jennifer Lee, and three anonymous readers. The University of
California President’s Office, Babilonia Wilner Foundation, and the Graduate School of University of
Wisconsin, Madison, provided support during the writing of this article.
1. See Victoria Paz Cruz, Seasonal Chinese-American Family Strategies,”

Orphans and Solo Parents: The Journal of Marriage and the Family 19
Impacts of Overseas Migration (February 1983): 35–46.
(Quezon City, Philippines: Scalabrini 5. Arlie Hochschild, The Managed
Migration Center, 1987); and Maruja Heart: Commercialization of Human
Asis, “The Overseas Employment Feeling (Berkeley: University of
Program,” in Philippine Labor California Press, 1983), 85.
Migration: Impact and Policy, ed. 6. See Belinda Medina, The Filipino
Graziano Battistella and Anthony Family: A Text with Selected
Paganoni (Quezon City, Philippines: Readings (Quezon City, Philippines:
Scalabrini Migration Center, 1992), University of the Philippines Press,
68–112. 1991).
2. By social reproduction, I refer, as 7. For contemporary transnational
defined by Barbara Laslett and households, see Linda Basch, Nina
Johanna Brenner, to “the activities and Glick Schiller, and Christina Szanton
attitudes, behaviors and emotions, Blanc, Nations Unbound:
responsibilities and relationships Transnational Projects, Postcolonial
directly involved in the maintenance Predicaments, and Deterritorialized
of life on a daily basis, and Nation-States (Langhorne, Penn.:
intergenerationally.” See Barrie Gordon & Breach Science Publishers,
Thome, “Feminism and the Family: 1992); Leo Chavez, Shadowed Lives:
Two Decades of Thought,” in Undocumented Immigrants in
Rethinking the Family: Some American Society (Fort Worth:
Feminist Questions, ed. Barrie Thome Harcourt Brace College Publishers,
and Marilyn Yalom, rev. ed. (Boston: 1992); Julia Curry, “Labor Migration
Northwestern University Press, 1992), and Familial Responsibilities:
3–30. Experiences of Mexican Women,” in
3. For an excellent article on the Mexicanas at Work in the United
reconstitution of mothering in States, ed. Margarita Melville
transnational house• holds, see (Houston: Mexican American Studies
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Program, University of Houston,
Ernestine Avila, “‘I’m Here, but I’m 1988), 47–63; Pierrette Hondagneu-
There’: The Meanings of Latina Sotelo, Gendered Transitions:
Transnational Motherhood,” Gender Mexican Experiences of Migration
and Society 11 (October 1997): 548– (Berkeley: University of California
71. For a discussion of gender Press, 1994); Michel Laguerre,
ideologies in the Philippines, see Delia “Headquarters and Subsidiaries:
Aguilar, The Feminist Challenge: Haitian Immigrant Family Households
Initial Working Principles toward in New York City,” in Minority
Reconceptualizing the Feminist Families in the United States, ed.
Movement in the Philippines (Metro Ronald Taylor (Englewood Cliffs,
Manila, Philippines: Asian Social N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1994), 47–61;
Institute, 1988). Douglas Massey et al., Return to
4. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, “Split Aztlan: The Social Process of
Household, Small Producer, and Dual International Migration from Western
Wage Earner: An Analysis of Mexico (Berkeley: University of
250
California Press, 1987); and Paz Cruz. 16. Mary Romero, Maid in the U.S.A.
For historical transnational house• (New York: Routledge, 1992), 106.
holds, see Glenn. 17. Wharton and Erickson.
8. See Basch, Schiller, and Blanc; and 18. Arlie Hochschild, “Ideals of Care:
Roger Rouse, “Mexican Migration and Traditional, Postmodern, Cold-
the Social Space of Postmodernism,” Modern, and Warm-Modern,” in
Diaspora 1, no. 1(1991): 8–23. Families in the United States:
9. Basch, Schiller, and Blanc; and Rhacel Kinship and Domestic Politics, ed.
Salazar Parrefi.as, “New Family Karen Hansen and Anita Ilta Garey
Forms, Old Family Values: The (Philadelphia: Temple University
Formation and Reproduction of the Press, 1998).
Filipino Transnational Family in Los 19. I looked at almost all the issues of
Angeles,” in Asian America: A Tinig Filipino published between
Multidisciplinary Reader, ed. Min October 1994 and July 1996. A few
Zhou and James V. Gatewood (New back issues prior to May 1995 had
York: New York University Press, been unavailable.
1999). 20. The sixteen women who reported their
10. See Chavez; Curry; and Hondagneu- status as undocumented were eligible
Sotelo. to obtain a permit to stay under the
11. Exceptions to this are the articles by 1995 legislative decree, and because
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Avila; and the decree had been in progress during
Charlene Tung, “The Cost of Caring: my research, we can safely assume
The Social Reproductive Labor of that most of these women are now
Filipina Live-in Home Health official guest workers in Italy.
Caregivers,” Frontiers 21, no. 1and 2 21. Examples of such studies include
(2000): 61–82. Christine Chin, In Service and
12. Stevi Jackson, “Even Sociologists Fall Servitude: Foreign Female Domestic
in Love: An Exploration in the Workers and the Malaysian
Sociology of Emotions,” Sociology “Modernity” Project (New York:
27, no. 2 (1993): 201–20; Jean Columbia University Press, 1998);
Duncombe and Dennis Marsden, and Catholic Institute for International
“Love and Intimacy: The Gender Relations, The Labour Trade: Filipino
Division of Emotion and ‘Emotion Migrant Workers around the Globe
Work,”’ Sociology 27, no. 2 (1993): (London: Catholic Institute for
221–24; and Amy S. Wharton and International Relations, 1987).
Rebecca J. Erickson, “The 22. Hondagneu-Sotelo.
Consequences of Caring: Exploring 23. For excellent discussions on the labor
the Links between Women’s Job and market incorporation of migrants in
Family Emotion Work,” Sociological urban centers of globalization, see
Quarterly 36 (spring 1995): 273–96. Saskia Sassen, The Mobility and Flow
13. See Sylvia Chant and Cathy of Labor and Capital (New York:
Mcllwaine, Women of a Lesser Cost: Cambridge University Press, 1988),
Female Labour, Foreign Exchange, and Cities in a World Economy
and Philippine Development (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Pine Forge
(London: Pluto Press, 1995); and Press, 1994).
Elizabeth Uy Eviota, The Political 24. See Chin.
Economy of Gender: Women and the 25. For a discussion of the
Sexual Division of Labour in the “denationalization” and
Philippines (London: Zed Books, “renationalization” of societies in
1992). globalization, see Saskia Sassen,
14. Hochschild, Managed Heart, 7. Losing Control? Sovereignty in an
15. Judith Rollins, Between Women: Age of Globalization (New York:
Domestics and Their Employers Columbia University Press, 1996).
(Philadelphia: Temple University 26. For instance, see Chin.
Press, 1985).
251
27. See Abigail Bakan and Daiva 1994, 28. Letter is translated from
Stasiulis, introduction to Not One of Tagalog to English.
the Family: Foreign Domestic 38. Junelyn Gonzaga, “Listen to Our
Workers in Canada, ed. Abigail Bakan Small Voices,” Tinig Filipino,
and Daiva Stasiulis (Toronto: December 1995, 13.
University of Toronto Press, 1997), 3– 39. Paz Cruz, 42.
27. 40. Hans Medick and David Warren
28. See Mary Lou Alcid, “Legal and Sabean, “Interest and Emotion in
Organizational Support Mechanisms Family Kinship Studies: A Critique of
for Foreign Domestic Workers,” in Social History and Anthropology,” in
The Trade in Domestic Workers, ed. Interest and Emotion: Essays on the
Noeleen Heyzer et al. (London: Zed Study of Family and Kinship, ed. Hans
Books, 1994), 161–77; and Pei-Chia Medick and David Warren Sabean
Lan, “Bounded Commodity in a (Cam• bridge: Cambridge University
Global Market: Migrant Workers in Press, 1984), 9–27.
Taiwan” (paper presented at the 41. Yen Le Espiritu, Asian American
Annual Meeting of the Society for the Women and Men (Thousand Oaks,
Study of Social Problems, Chicago, 6– Calif.: Sage Publications, 1997), 12.
8 Aug. 1999). 42. See Eviota.
29. Rhacel Salazar Parreii.as, “Migrant 43. Luz Rimban, “Filipina Diaspora,” in
Filipina Domestic Workers and the Her Stories: Investigative Reports on
International Division of Reproductive Filipino Women in the 1990s, ed.
Labor,” Gender and Society 14 Cecile C.A. Balgos (Quezon City,
(August 2000): 560–80. Philippines: Philippine Center for
30. See the anthology edited by Juan Investigative Journalism, 1999), 128.
Perea, Immigrants Out! The New 44. Carolyn Israel-Sobritchea, “The
Nativism and the Anti-immigrant Ideology of Female Domesticity: Its
Impulse in the United States (New Impact on the Status of Filipino
York: New York University Press, Women,” Review of Women’s Studies
1997). 1, no. 1(1990): 26–41.
31. I use pseudonyms to protect the 45. Jocelyn Mariano, “Child Abuse and
anonymity of my informants. OCWs,” Tinig Filipino, October 1995,
32. Gloria Acgaoili, “Mother, Behold 26–27.
Your Child,” Tinig Filipino, May 46. Neferti Xina Tadiar, “Domestic
1995, 14. Italicized sections are Bodies of the Philippines,” Sojourn
translated from Tagalog to English. 12, no. 2 (1997): 153–91.
33. Doreen Massey, Space, Place, and 47. See Medina for a discussion of
Gender (Minneapolis: University of cultural traditions in the Filipino
Minnesota Press, 1994), 149. family.
34. Paz Cruz, 43. 48. Paz Cruz, 38.
35. Clarita U. Aratan, “Money or Family,” 49. Ibid., 42.
Tinig Filipino, December 1994, 34. 50. Ibid., 40.
36. Liza Daguio, “Family Still Number 51. Rodney Catorce, “My Dad Is Away,
One,” Tinig Filipino, February 1995, So What?” Tinig Filipino, June 1995,
40. Quotation is translated from 9.
Tagalog to English. 52. Arlie Hochschild with Anne Machung,
37. Nina Rea Arevalo, “Inay, Pasko na The Second Shift (New York: Avon
Naman,” Tinig Filipino, December Books, 1989).
252
K
The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media,
and Changing Patterns of Participation
W. LANCE BENNETT
Time magazine made two interesting choices for its much-publicized person of the
year in the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2006, the person of the year was You.
(Congratulations!) The cover contained a mirror in which the viewer’s face appeared in place
of the more customary photos of the heads of state or world figures that have set the tone
since Time began giving the award in 1927. 1The broad rationale for that surprising choice
was the awareness that individuals were increasingly on their own in changing societies, yet
empowered with proliferating social media and personalized communication technologies
that enablea large number of ordinary people to become linked to and recognized by a large
number of others. The year 2011 marked another interesting choice as The Protester graced
the Time cover in the form of a masked and amorphous demonstrator who could have been
male or female, or come from the Arab Spring in Tahrir Square, the indignados in Madrid or
Barcelona, or any of the hundreds of Occupy camps in the United States or else where around
the world (the image turned out to be a young woman from Occupy LA).
The focus of a great deal of social, political, and economic life in the recent era has
been up close and personal, as exemplified by an expanding number ofself-help books,
multiplying therapeutic talk programs, ever surprising reality TV genres with their strange
assortment of everyday people picked from obscurity to become celebrities, and,
everywhere, the consuming emphasis on personal lifestyle affordances as the building
blocks for a meaningful life. (When asked Siri—the personal valet that Apple built into my
iPhone—about the meaning of life, she told me that all the evidence points to chocolate.)
Among the most interesting aspects of this era of personalization has been the rise
of large-scale, rapidly forming political participation aimed at avariety of targets, from more
traditional parties or candidates, to direct engagement with corporations, brands, and
transnational policy forums. These mobilizations often include a multitude of issues brought
into the same protests through a widely shared late modern ethos of diversity and
inclusiveness. The identity politics of the “new social movements “that arose after
the 1960s centered on group identity (women, minorities, immigrants, and native people)
or cause issues (anti nuclear, environmental conservation, and specific rights) still
exist, of course, but they have been joined by more heterogeneous mobilizations in
which diverse causes such as economic justice (fairtrade, in equality, and development),
environmental protection, and war and peace are directed at moving targets from local
to national and transnational and from government to business. The more diverse the
mobilization, the more personalized the expressions often become, typically involving
communication technologies that allow individuals to activate their loosely tied social
networks.2 There are still plenty of conventional politics based on identification
with parties, ideologies, and common causes. However, the rise of a more personalized
politics has become a notable trend.
The discussion here expands on Bennett and Segerberg (2011) and defines
personalized politics as involving varying combinations of the following conditions:
253
An ethos of diversity and inclusiveness defined by tolerance for different viewpoints
and even different issues linked across loosely bounded political networks.
The rise of crowd-sourced inclusive personal action frames (e.g. “We are the 99%”)
that lower the barriers to identification. These easily personalized frames contrast with more
conventional collective action frames (e.g. “eat the rich”) that may require more socialization
and brokerage to propagate in large numbers.
Participation is importantly channeled through often dense social networks over

which people can share their own stories and concerns—the pervasive use of social
technology enables individuals to become important catalysts of collective action processes
as they activate their own social networks.
Personalized politics has long existed, of course, in the form of populist uprisings or
emotional bonds with charismatic leaders. The interesting difference in today’s participation
landscape is that widespread social fragmentation has produced individuation as the modal
social condition in postindustrial democracies,
3
particularly among younger generations (Beck
2006; Bennett 1998; Giddens 1991) . While individuals may be at the center of their
own
universes, those universes can be very large thanks to the social networking potential of
ubiquitous communication technologies. These often dense communication networks enable
political organization and expression that often lacks, or actively shuns, clear central leaders
and organizations. Sometimes these networks are loosely coordinated by custom Web
platforms that provide information, media hosting, and direct interaction among activists.
Developing or adapting interactive media affordances also enables NGOs and social
movement organizations to personalize the pathways to popular engagement with their issues
(Bennett and Segerberg 2012). Even mainstream institutions such as political parties often
find that personalized appeals to growing ranks of independent voters can help to engage
them.
As ideology and formal group identifications (e.g. party, union, church, or class) fade
as the mechanisms for organizing civic life (Putnam 2000), individuals increasingly code
their personal politics through personal lifestyle values (Bennett 1998; Giddens 1991). It is
common for many of these lifestyle values to echo across the porous boundaries of product
and political advertising. Is my car environmentally friendly? Are my fashion, food, or
electronic devices worker friendly? Are my favored cause organizations or candidates
expressing my personal values, and do they understand my pain or anger? These battles for
individual emotions swirl around sustainable lifestyle initiatives among progressives, with
much of the attention on consumer identifications that find easy outlets in corporate
campaigns against McDonalds, Monsanto, Exxon, and even Apple. Personalized politics also
extends well into more conventional issues and policy arenas, from the popular idea of a
Robin Hood Tax in Europe, to the “occupation” of institutions, people, and ideas in the
United States and elsewhere. 4 The inroads of personalized politics are by no means
happening just on the Left and the center. In many ways, the right wing has become the
default location for highly individualized discourses of personal freedom and market
deregulation, resulting in heavy discounting of public goods and common interests.
254
Different Communication Styles: Personalized Politics on the Left and Right
Many sorts of personalized collective action arise from the conservative Right. For
example, most of the postindustrial democracies have seen the rise of hybrid nationalist
movements as diverse as the Tea Party in the United States, the years of Berlusconi/Northern
League rule in Italy, and the Sweden Democrats. Similar to traditional nationalist populist
movements, these late modern hybrids invite followers to define “true citizens” as “people
like me” (e.g. a white, hard-working native-born citizen) and not those immigrants who come
to live off my hard-earned tax money. Beyond this, the nationalist hybrids invite highly
personalized forms of expression against any number of emotional targets. In this process,
personal emotion becomes self-validating. Participants can pick their own outlets for anger,
from race or sexual preference, to the many perceived government restrictions on personal
freedoms. Seeming contradictions melt away in feelings of personal entitlement, as when Tea
Party identifiers make exceptions for government Medicare programs that benefit them
because they believe that, unlike undeserving immigrants or minorities on welfare, they have
worked hard to earn their benefits (Skocpol and Williamson 2012).
If personalized politics still exhibits some echoes of old conservative ideology, it is in

the neoliberal consensus of the recent era of globalization, in which free markets and free
consumers were heralded as the paths to prosperity and democratic development. (It is not
surprising that Ayn Rand and von Hayek made comebacks in this era.) The conservative end
of the personalized politics spectrum is heavy with references to personal freedom and highly
emotional reactions to attempts to adjust the social equity balance in schools, health care, or
income, which are seen as threats to that freedom. The extreme personal attacks on President
Obama that were part of the right-wing branding of the “Obamacare” health plan portrayed
him in Internet caricatures and on talk shows as both a communist and Hitler while
continuing to challenge the authenticity of his birth taking place in the United States. even the
place of Tea Party Patriots in the Republican Party is by no means a comfortable fit given the
levels of emotional attachment to ideas such as allowing the government to go into default
rather than honor its debt obligations.
Neither evidence nor reasoned debate often sway such emotional orientations.
Indeed, conservative opposition to government efforts to regulate or find substitutes for
carbon energy use have been supported by jokes and paid experts raising doubts about
climate science itself, amplified by intensive corporate-backed propaganda attacking climate
research. Carbon energy companies poured large sums of money into think tanks,
conferences, and campaigns to fuel denial of climate change, providing a steady stream of
material for talk shows and political candidates to sell retail to individual citizens. The result
has been a rapid erosion (most notably on the Right) of American public belief in climate
change, in human causes of climate change (from 50 percent to 34 percent between 2006 and
2010), and even in thinking that scientists generally agree about human contributions to
global warming (Pew Research Center 2010). Meanwhile, European popular support for
environmental protection policies has remained strong, suggesting grounds for interesting
comparative research.
With the notable exception of historians, scholars have not focused enough on the
long-standing American conservative and business propagandizing of corporate virtue,
market and consumer freedoms aimed at dampening the effects of more progressive forms of
consumer action or government regulation. Nor have communication scholars focused
255
enough attention on the palpably different communication styles of personalized politics on
the Left and the Right. Where the Right seems uninterested in dialogue and responding to
rational or factual challenges, the Left may err in the continued pursuit of reason,
deliberation, and civility with opponents. The result is a profound political disconnect with
consequences that are worth understanding. If, indeed, the Right has adopted a strategic and
personally ingrained aversion to dialogue and deliberation, scholars should not shy away
from analyzing this just because they fear charges of bias. The Right has used charges of
liberal bias as its symbolic battering ram for several decades. Given the success of
conservative networks in using “the power of no” to turn minority publics into veto blocks on
many issues, one might consider both the political advantages of closed, nondeliberative
discourse styles as well as their antidemocratic outcomes (see Bennett 2011). The impasse
between the discourse styles of the Left and the Right has been a defining element of
contemporary personalized politics.
Origins of Personalized Politics: Globalization and the Free Market Fetish
The roots of personalized politics in the current era can be traced broadly to social
changes related to the era of economic globalization that can be roughly bounded from the
1970s to the global financial crisis of the early twenty-first century. There have been many
eras of globalization throughout history, each with its own kind of economic logic and impact
on societies, so there is no one-kind-fits-all model of globalization, society, and politics. The
time of Marco Polo differed from the colonial era, which differed from the postcolonial
period of ideologically filtered globalization in the great Cold War struggle for military and
economic domination of the Third World.
During the recent period, what has been termed a neoliberal trade regime arose to
transform global production, finance, marketing, labor, and consumption. As manufacturing
moved south, the so-called postindustrial nations of the North underwent tectonic shifts in
national labor markets and the social and political relevance of civil society institutions (these
shifts were buffered more in some nations than in others). Changes included the
transformation of domestic industrial sectors and careers (growth in service and information
industries and declines in union manufacturing labor), related personal instability in career
and lifestyles, and rising levels of personal stress and sense of responsibility for choices and
consequences (Beck 2006; Bennett 1998). In addition, public sectors underwent sweeping
changes as privatization and hybrid (public-private partnership) market schemes were applied
variously to education, health care, energy, transportation, and even security functions of the
state. These changes inside nations further placed individuals in uncertain market
relationships in many areas of life: temporary labor, costly choices in public education and
health care, greater sense of risk and “precarity,” and longer periods of unemployment and
retraining between the multiple careers that often characterize the late modern biography. As
the slogan of the age goes: failure is the new success.
In short, the neoliberal economic regime not only changed the world economy, it
changed fundamental policies within nations by introducing privatization and market forces
into daily personal life. This reduced the GDP contribution of most public sectors and enabled
the rise of voracious consumer populations with more money to spend on goods that were
cheaper due to the use of cheap labor and natural resources in the South.5 Collateral human
and environmental damage became externalities in this scheme, accounting for the
256
tempting prices of lifestyle goods, but deferring and displacing their true costs as perverse
“public bads” shared by the entire planet. Since much has been written about all of this
(Bennett 1998; Beck 2006; Giddens 1991), I do not go into much more background here, and
instead turn to several theoretical generalizations that may be useful for understanding the
shift to personalized politics and its relation to the rise of such offshoots as political
consumerism, Occupy, and the Tea Party-style protest networks.
During this historic period of globalization (roughly bounded from the mid-1970s to
the present), the ideals and practices of neoliberal economics became so pervasive that many
parties on the Left shifted their stances on formerly staunch domestic programs, often leading
the way in sacrificing labor protections to business-friendly trade agreements, while
privatizing other public goods and services such as education, health care, and transportation.
This led to the demise of social democrats and labor parties in such bastions as Germany,
Sweden, and Britain, and created odd hybrid models such as the Obama and Clinton
presidencies in the United States. This bipartisan consensus on the virtues of market
deregulation (sold under the slogans of individual freedom and job creation) drove social and
economic equality values (the old foundation of many collective action frames) steadily to the
political margins. In the United States, for example, many Democratic social and economic
policies were borrowed from the Republican playbook. At the same time, Republicans were
outflanked by increasingly conservative factions such as the Tea Party and even more stark
demands from businesses for more deregulation and lower taxation for the rich. An
individualized market culture even arose in Sweden (albeit with a hybrid embrace of the
welfare state), where the demise of the Social Democrats for an unprecedented second time in
the elections of 2010 was crowned with the ironic campaign slogan that the Moderates (a
Center Right party) were the “true labor party.” Typical of a move toward a politics of
personal emotion was the startling rise of an ultra-right anti-immigrant party (the Sweden
Democrats) that entered parliament in 2010.
The importance of this rightward shift for our story about the personalization of
politics cannot be underestimated. The neoliberal mantra of personal freedom and growth
through market deregulation became the default ideology of our time, perhaps challenged
only by the global financial crisis that spread out from the U.S. housing bubble that burst in
2008. As a result, many voters were deprived of meaningful election choices on what was
formerly known as the Left, and younger citizens often developed aversions to politics and
government altogether. Other voters came to see the Center Right as the true standard bearer
of neoliberal ideals packaged in terms of personal freedom and choice, and voted it into
office in such places as Germany, Sweden, Britain, and the United States, along with extreme
fringe factions such as the Tea Party and the Sweden Democrats. While other reactions were
set in motion by the growing economic crisis in Europe, the notable pattern was one of
government instability and public anger rather than an embrace of clear competing ideologies
or party identifications on the Left.
An important spinoff of the diminishing choices in the formal political arena created
what Beck (2006) refers to as asubpolitics, marked by the growing attraction of large-scale
personalized politics by other means, from consumer action to mass occupations. As
explained below, these collective actions are less like conventional social movements with
leaders, organizations, and collective identity frames than they are what Micheletti (2003)
describes as individualized collective action where large numbers of people join in loosely
coordinated activities centered on more personal emotional identifications and rationales.
257
Another broad enabling condition of individualized collective action is that
individuals have become fully immersed in consumer cultures and have developed a
discerning eye for their political and personal products. Whether the Left moved to the Right
due to political expedience, voter demand, or both, the individualized orientation of the
citizen-consumer further undermines the appeal of adopting collective identifications with
party, ideology, or conventional movements. As voters fell away from party identifications
(even a plurality of Swedish voters under 30 expressed no party preference by 2010), they
became hard sells and often demanded (or were cynically sold) rather crass offers such as
lower taxes and moving the welfare line further down the economic ladder to pay for them.
The consumer practices that came to define many areas of public and private life support
broad repertoires of political activity. Some of this activity is direct, as boycott and boycott
pressures have produced changes in corporate behavior, from commitments to greater
responsibility for labor and environmental harms, to rebranding products as worker or
environment friendly or fairly traded. Some practices from the consumer culture emerged
indirectly through implicit understandings about how to use the messages and technologies of
personalized communication to share political concerns and promote them under popular
slogans such as “We are the 99%.”
In short, just as consumerism has entered politics through branding and marketing to
independent voters, it has become an increasing focus for the less conventional politics of the
age, as activists have mounted numerous campaigns to discipline global corporations that
they see slipping the net of national regulations. Many of these have produced notable
changes in corporate behavior and policy (e.g. Nike’s sweatshop labor problem; McDonald’s
food chain, packaging, and health problems; the environmental impact of Coca Cola’s
bottling practices; Monsanto’s Frankenstein seeds; Starbuck’s unfair trading practices in the
coffee market; Apple examining the conditions in its Chinese factories; and on and on).
Related protests at world summits of the G8 and 20 and at the Davos World economic Forum
have become routine in the years following the Battle in Seattle that shut down the World
Trade Organization meeting in 1999. Other protests have been equally impressive in their
scope, as in the cases of the indignados and Occupy protesters, who have triggered
international discussions about growing inequality and other predations of the 1 percent
against the 99 percent. These activist networks seem to be reinventing repertoires of
participation.
I use the term “reinventing” advisedly here, as it evades unproductive debates about
what is new and what is old. It may seem that there is nothing new under the sun, as the new
economic justice protests faintly echo the early labor politics of boycotts dating from a
century ago, but unlike labor-led boycotts or buycotts, the latter-day varieties may not even
be centrally organized by labor unions, and they are often aimed at conditioning corporations
to be more responsible in factories that have spread across the globe in a race away from
domestic unionized labor. Similarly, the dense networks of indignados and Occupy protesters
that emerged following the global financial crisis in the first decade of the twenty-first
century may echo some of the economic justice demands of leftist social movements, but
without the militant ideologies, inter-organizational struggles, and conflicts over collective
identities that often occupy the center stage of movement participation (the endless meetings
of the Occupy or indignado general assemblies are of course another matter). Rather than
spill too much ink here worrying about just what criteria satisfy the standards of “new,” I
focus on a collection of interesting differences that seem to be at the very least changing the
258
way in which some of this personalized participation is organized, even as other
characteristics may display some continuities.
Scholars are beginning to explore hybrid forms of participation that emerge outside
of conventional institutional structures. As noted above, Micheletti (2003) and Stolle and
Micheletti (forthcoming) analyze forms of individualized collective action that characterize
new patterns of political consumerism that take aim at corporations and other economic
targets with behaviors that are often anchored more in personal or local logics and, perhaps,
only loosely directed by movements or advocacy organizations. Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl
(2012) have also found that the relationships between individuals and civic organizations are
becoming more entrepreneurial and less centrally manageable, resulting in changes in the
way communication is involved in organizing collectivities.
Bennett and Segerberg (2012) have identified a logic of connective action that
explains how individuals avoid self-interest or free rider obstacles to joining contentious
politics because they can engage via intrinsically motivating personal expression that can be
shared across social networks that, in turn, link people to larger protest networks. Some of
those networks may have NGOs or other organizations embedded within them, but they are
often in background roles facilitating personalized engagement rather than managing
conventional collective action with its issues of divided group identities, ideological splits,
and resource struggles. As Castells (1996) pointed out, these collectivities are better
understood as fine-grained, multilayered networks rather than as hierarchical coalitions of
organizations. In this network view, communication becomes an organizational process that
goes well beyond the exchange of messages.
Communication and the Organization of Personalized Politics
The “me generation,” which was reflected on Time’s mirrored cover announcing that
You were person of the year, seemed to come of age at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Yet the cries of late-twentieth-century critics about mass narcissism and the degradation of
public life seemed not fully consistent with the growth of dense and often intersecting social
networks through which individuals join with others to share ideas, music, games, code, peer
product ratings, and political protests. There is little to gain from sweeping generalizations
about the (alternately) cheerful or gloomy prospects for a political future based on
(alternately) isolated and polarized, or loosely tied and easily, connected individuals. These
debates abound and seldom shed light on more complex underlying realities. I cautiously
embrace the views of Benkler (2007) and propose that although the Internet is vast and full of
seemingly isolated nodes and long tails, communication technologies can activate the “small
world” phenomena through which distant people are in remarkably close reach. In short,
communication technologies may put individuals at the center of their own networks, but the
reach of those networks often enables the coproduction and distribution of multimedia
content with a surprisingly large number of others. Political participation in this picture
comes in the form of recombinant digitally networked action (RDNA) that reflects the
flexible, large-scale, and surprisingly stable networks that are engaging many arenas and
targets of power (see Bennett and Segerberg 2012).
As noted above, Castells (1996) argued early on that social and political networks
were becoming the loci of power in society, replacing hierarchical social and political
259
institutions. Whether and under what conditions such sweeping power shifts may have
become decisive remain complex empirical questions. There are still plenty of old-fashioned
institutions wielding power, and the last time I checked, the state (along with its newly grown
transnational arms) seemed alive and well. However, it also seems clear that loosely
organized large-scale networks as diverse as al Qaeda, Occupy, indignados, and media file
sharers have become fixtures on the political landscape that increasingly pose challenges to
states and related dominant cultural, political, and economic regimes.
When conventional political institutions seem on the verge of acting against the
interests of diverse and seemingly isolated populations, the social networked communication
of digitally networked activism (DNA) can produce surprising results. In early 2012, for
example, the U.S. Congress was poised to vote on a pair of invasive antipiracy bills. The
legislation was backed by “old media” companies and raised the specter of filtering the
Internet and turning online companies into police agencies. Wikipedia and Google led a
protest involving hundreds of other sites that directed millions of diverse individuals to
contact their representatives. This twenty-four-hour protest forced sponsors to withdraw the
legislation and backers to regroup. Typical of many rapid collective action formations in this
era, there was no clear collective frame to mobilize individuals. Rather, individuals were
offered a rainbow of reasons to act (bad for business, threat to innovation, job killer, invasion
of privacy, national security threat, vulnerabilities to the Internet, and so on). The common
thread was a loose call to prevent government censorship of entities ranging from the entire
Internet, to the safety of personal communication, to the independence of favorite sites
(Google and Wired featured black redaction bars across their pages). Such inclusive and
easily personalized action frames and ubiquitous mechanisms for technology-enabled
participation increasingly dot the political landscape (earl and Kimport 2011). Sometimes
these mobilizations are explicitly triggered by appeals to lifestyle consumer values and
accompanied by branded communication, and sometimes, they address more general
economic foundations of society as expressed in terms of justice and fairness.
Reactions to these kinds of participation often entail puzzlement on the part of

observers who have trouble fathoming their political logic. Journalists, for example, have
persisted in asking the diverse members of many of these protests what their common
position or demand is, or who their leaders are. At the same time, the earnest individualism,
the easily embraceable personal action frames, and the often remarkable scale of many of
these protests made them hard to dismiss. Many of these protests have received more positive
press coverage (Bennett and Segerberg 2011) than is typically associated with social
movements confronting governments with more challenging or extreme ideological collective
action frames (Gitlin 1980). At the same time, operating outside of conventional norms and
rituals (whether those attached to government or to social movement repertoires) gives these
protests something of a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos.
DIY Politics: Understanding emerging Forms of Participation
Thorson (2012) has observed that shifts in the citizenship orientations of younger
generations have been noted by many observers (including this author).
However, a missing element of various analyses of the citizenship shift is a

compelling documentation of the norm set for the next era of variously termed citizenship.
260
Modern era dutiful citizens were urged by educators, politicians, civic leaders, and other
authorities to follow the news, join community organizations, and, above all, vote. By
contrast, the younger generations breaking away from these norms in the current era of
personalized politics have few clear guidelines to follow in fashioning a public life. Part of
the gap is surely due to the fact that civic authorities continue to be drawn from older
generations who practice dutiful civic virtues and who understandably think they work just
fine. Despite continuing efforts of institutional authorities to press dutiful practices and ideals
on younger generations, they are increasingly unlikely to find receptive audiences. While
older citizens may lament the trouble with youth today, young people are forging ahead in
many areas of politics and making it up as they go along (often with mixed results).
Many of the large-scale examples of individualized collective action that dot the
political landscape surely draw on repertoires of action from the past, as in the ways in which
Occupy protesters or indignados organized their general assemblies using consensus
procedures and a host of direct democracy practices that have been handed down from past
protest repertoires. At the same time, the protests displayed openness to individual-level
innovation aided by clear avoidance of formal organization, leaders, collective identifications,
divisive ideology, or hierarchy. Also characteristic of the open communication architecture of
the Occupy protests were the dense and highly personalized media networks used to maintain
connections and coordinate activities. Moving beyond off-the-shelf communication
technologies such as Facebook and Twitter, Occupy technology developers sought to build
idea generators, take-action platforms, and a “global square” virtual commons.
There are open questions about where and how new norms guiding participation will
emerge from the profusion of self-actualizing, digitally mediated DIY politics. Will norms
emerge from reforming existing institutions, from changing school civics curricula, or from
grassroots success models? Research is needed to chart these pathways. There may even be
an argument for DIY as a more or less permanent adaptive response to complexities of late-
modern politics: given the numbers and types of moving political targets that citizens must
engage to register their concerns, a DIY ethos may prove the most flexible orientation.
Can these personalized forms of collective action achieve the levels of focus and
sustainability that have typically been required for social movements to press their demands
successfully? This question may be too broad in scope to yield easy or definitive answers.
Recent history suggests a mixed record. As noted in the sections below, there have been
impressive gains in terms of deposing regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, or raising long-ignored
questions of inequality among elites and in the American press. At the same time, there have
been repeated setbacks at climate conferences and in various areas of reforming trade
regimes. Whether classic social movement organization would have produced better
outcomes is debatable, given the disproportionate influence of business and free market
values that continued to dominate formal political debate even in the midst of global financial
and environmental crises. The next two sections offer ways of thinking about the impact of
these personalized forms of connective action.
The Upside: Shaping the Political Agenda
As globalization created divisions between poorly compensated producers in the

South and increasingly well-appointed consumers in the North, activists successfully raised
261
questions about whether one’s fashion statement came at the expense of exploited sweatshop
workers or coffee growers squeezed to bare subsistence by global commodity markets. In
many ways, consumer activism has put corporations on alert that their brands are in danger
(Klein 1999). These consumer mobilizations do not even require mass awareness or radical
conversions to succeed. A combination of creative protest strategies and timely information
delivered to journalists (e.g. arrests of union organizers, suicides at plants, or working
conditions at foreign sites of production) can hold the brands hostage in the press, making
corporations at least begin to address social responsibility issues (Bennett and Lagos 2007;
Stolle and Micheletti forthcoming).
Looking more generally beyond explicit consumer action, there have also been clear
impacts from the broad DNA uprisings against corrupt authoritarian regimes of the Middle
East, and against the inequities that produced the financial crisis in which taxpayers in the
OECD democracies suffered austerity to save the banks. Spurred by the economic downturns
of a global finance crisis that had the world on the brink of economic depression, protesters
raised questions about inequality and the false promises of deregulated markets. These
underlying issues stemming from the indignado and Occupy protests circulated widely in
many societies, leading to changes in national conversations and political agendas.
These shifts in national discourses were major accomplishments coming from loosely
organized protests that are not easy to classify as social movements, since they lacked central
coordination, collective identity frames, and focused political demands. Indeed, emerging
patterns of political activism such as Occupy were dispersed, decentered, weakly coordinated,
and pegged to inclusive personal identity frames such as “We are the 99%,” which became a
mantra of the protests and media discourses about them. One palpable correlate of such
inclusive participation networks was more favorable press coverage than many radical social
movements typically receive. In part, this is because inclusive “everyperson” personal action
frames such as “the 99%” are easier to report favorably than exclusive collective action
frames defining narrower social identity groups against the established order. In addition, it
was clear that many journalists and commentators had long recognized the growth of
inequality as the big untold story of the era that few officials wanted to touch politically. Now
it could be reported as a real problem, and politicians could discuss it.
The elites who began to address formerly marginalized topics such as inequality and
fairness did not necessarily endorse or always even acknowledge the protesters. The press
coverage offered a bridging device to make reference to topics that were now in wide public
circulation. In Washington, London, Berlin, Paris, and Davos, leaders made cautious
suggestions about adjusting the distribution of economic gains so that people in societies
might better benefit from capitalism. Some of these discussions on the Left were framed in
terms of restoring fairness values in societies where economic power had leveraged the
political game too far in favor of the rich. Some on the Right expressed more pragmatic
concerns that too much inequality could kill the consumer capacity on which economic
growth depends. It is hard to imagine this range of discourse emerging without the pressure
of dense personalized protest networks that now had their own media systems that intersected
with conventional media audiences and enabled content to flow across vast networks. Images
and memes, such as the 1 percent versus 99 percent, traveled through most every
communication channel in the OECD democracies and beyond.
262
In the United States, the inequality discourse quickly took on a life of its own,
creating a media bridge for supporting voices such as labor unions and progressive members
of Congress who were wary of becoming too closely identified with the protesters.
eventually, even Barack Obama signaled a shift in his concessionary political style by raising
questions of fairness and equity, sparking a frustrated support base, and making inroads into
parts of the middle electorate. In other nations, leaders from the Center Right such as Merkel
in Germany and Sarkozy in France spoke in favor of a Robin Hood Tax on financial
transactions aimed at limiting the volume of unproductive speculation in world economies
and adjusting inequities in relations between rich and poor at home and abroad. While the
economic crisis no doubt provided the political opportunity for these ideas to emerge in high
places, the pressures from below undoubtedly helped them along.6
It was under the cover of the growing press coverage on inequality and the excesses
of the 1 percent that Obama delivered a game-changing speech channeling Teddy Roosevelt
in Osawatomie, Kansas on December 6, 2011. The speech, along with a 60 Minutes interview
that week, offered a number of trial balloons testing themes for his presidential campaign.
Among these ideas was an elliptical reference to the grand 1 percent versus 99 percent meme
of the Occupy protests: “I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater
together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a
fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. These
aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1% values or 99% values.
They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them” (Washington Post 2011). These
ideas resonated with his base and beyond, and triggered a large volume of press coverage and
commentary. Obama further amplified the fairness and inequality themes, and added the idea
of economic sustainability, in the 2012 State of the Union Address titled “A Nation Built to
Last.” Many observers took that speech as a preview of his 2012 election stump speech.
Using Silobreaker, I conducted semantic network analyses of all media with online
presences, which enabled me to track co-occurrences of the terms inequality and occupy,
along with other terms chained to them. I followed these semantic networks from before the
first Occupy protests in September 2011, through the writing of this article in February 2012.
even as late as November 2011, semantic network maps showed that the terms most closely
associated with occupy and inequality were Adbusters (the magazine that triggered the
occupations with a blog post that went viral); taxes; and, at some remove, a conservative
oppositional cluster that included Tea Party, Tea Party Movement, Paul Ryan, and Republican
Party. The Democratic Party, unions, the White House, Obama administration, and Obama
did not even register their coappearance in any substantial volume beside the high-volume
discourses (numbering in the thousands of news and blog items per month) surrounding the
central terms occupy and inequality. In the early period of the protests (September 17 to mid-
October 2011), the inequality story was closely attached to the protests. By November,
inequality had taken on a life of its own, though it was still boosted by various occupy
activities that received coverage. Until the story took on a life of its own, a cautious liberal
political elite stayed away from protest discourse. The occupy protesters continued to take
their economic concerns directly to the politicians, as Obama and the Democratic Party were
“occupied” by protests outside of venues where they courted big donors including the Wall
Street bankers they had just bailed out.
Figure 1 shows that by early 2012 there were many interwoven narratives in the
media. There was still a baseline of news stories and blogs containing both the occupy and
263
inequality frames, but even larger volumes of stories focused on the two frames separately.
This enabled elite discourse strategies of the sort developed by Obama to appropriate the idea
of inequality and economic justice without becoming directly associated with their protest
messengers. When Obama delivered his Kansas speech on December 6, he immediately
moved into the center of the semantic inequality space (along with Teddy Roosevelt,
Osawatomie, and White House). For a few days, Obama even displaced Occupy Wall Street
from its near exclusive position at the center of the inequality discourse space in the media.7
By the time of the 2012 State of the Union Address, Obama meshed easily with the inequality
discourse space, taking periodic ownership of an idea that now had a life of its own, while
still reflecting its original association with Occupy. Figure 1 shows the way in which U.S.
news and commentary disproportionately associated Obama with the term inequality in media
coverage of his January 24 presidential address. The longer-term media trends before and
after the speech show how inequality and occupy tracked each other closely but occupied
separate story lines, while media items containing both terms (together in the same
paragraphs or prominently featured by placement and word count in the items) were smaller
in volume, but also tracked the two dominant story lines.
FIGURe 1: Frequency of Co-Occurring Terms in Online News and Blogs between January
16 and February 16, 2012
DEPE
SOURCE: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/258125311_fig1_FIGURe-1-Frequency-of-
Co-Occurring-Terms-in-Online-News-and-Blogs-between-January-16-and
NOTE: Obama’s State of the Union address occurred on January 24.
D
264
FIGURe 2: The Discourse Space Surrounding the Term Inequality in U.S. Online Media
(News and Blogs) from January 18 to February 18, 2012
SOURCE: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/258125311_fig2_FIGURe-2-The-Discourse-
Space-Surrounding-the-Term-Inequality-in-US-Online-Media-News
NOTE: Total items: 3,833. News (including commentary and editorials): 3,441; blogs: 381;
miscellaneous: 11.
When this pattern of inequality, as a focus of national media attention, matured in

early 2012, a number of prominent voices became associated with the inequality discussion.
Figure 2 shows a semantic network map of U.S. news and blogs based on the association
patterns of terms surrounding inequality (and filtered for relevance of those uses of inequality
to the terms occupy or occupy movement) in online media sites for the period January 18 to
February18, 2012. The closer another term is to inequality, the more items featuring that term
also use the term inequality. Path distances represent chains of co-occurrence among
documents. More distant items are less relevant to the central discourse, although they are
directly related to the terms along the paths leading to the central terms.
Inequality discourse was suddenly everywhere. It spiked whenever Occupy protests

popped up surrounding elite gatherings (at least whenever police clashes did not dominate the
stories). There were even reports of hand-wringing among elites at the 2012 World economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where forum organizers offered Occupy protesters an ersatz
headquarters outside the main conference venue. Some masters of the financial universe
fretted about the growth of inequality undermining popular faith in capitalism itself. Others
worried that shrinking consumer income might stall the growth engine that powered sales,
profits, and jobs. The icon of late-modern capitalism, Bill Gates, delivered a speech at Davos
titled “A New Approach to Capitalism in the 21st Century.” And the CEO of the World
economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, issued this remarkable comment that the New York Times
deemed fit for an occupier: Whether or not capitalism would be reformed to please many of
the Occupy protesters, it is remarkable that they were able to change the economic
conversation in such a short time, using such highly personalized networking organizations.
265
The Downside: Too Little Power, Too Many Problems
For all of the signs that the DNA of personalized politics has had an impact on public
discourses, from corporate social responsibility to economic and environmental justice, there
are also signs that significant structural policy changes are slow to materialize. Corporations
and elites may be signaling greater responsibility for the injustices inflicted on workers,
taxpayers, or the environment, but underlying change is harder to produce. The shift to
fundamentally different models of markets, resource use, energy production, or growth (much
less rethinking capitalism itself) seems at best a distant ideal rather than a real political
possibility.
Critical observers contend that there is little political will on display when
governments keep investing in solutions likely to make things worse in the long run to shore
up ever more precarious arrangements in the short run. Even the leading economists on the
Left such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz are basically unreconstructed Keynesians who
simply have different ideas about how to stimulate growth. Most official analyses underlying
the narrow spectrum of policy options tend to spin away fundamental causes and
contradictions. Whether coming from the economists in the Obama administration or the
OECD, key reports have concluded that neither the global trade regime nor the outsourcing of
good jobs contributed to the chronic rise of inequality or the acute difficulties in pulling out
of the world economic crisis. The politically safe analyses pointed to seemingly derivative
factors such as technological change and the deregulation of job markets (Pfanner 2012).
And so, growth remains the god term of our time, and only growth is touted inside
the circles of power as the solution to humanity’s ills. Yet growth and its attendant
externalities of resource depletion and environmental damage are also clearly associated with
the host of current political ills. Following from this, one criticism of consumer politics and
other contemporary lifestyle participation forms is that the goals are often not aimed at
slowing consumption but at making it a bit friendlier to workers and the environment. It is
easy to see why many activists shy away from a fuller embrace of sustainable societies as
their political goal. The brand of consumer politics dedicated to minimizing consumer
lifestyles (sometimes known as voluntary simplicity) is hard to make attractive to citizen-
consumers who think their lifestyles require continual outfitting and upgrading.
If majorities of publics lack the will to make voluntary radical changes, the lack of
will among their leaders is compounded many times over. Without leadership, publics are not
likely to feel comfortable undergoing the sacrifices necessary to change current economic
models. Given their close proximity to big business and its foreshortened “profit or die” time
horizon, it is hardly surprising that most political elites, even on the Left, are far removed
from being able to fundamentally change course. As a result, they continue to go through the
motions at summits with little will to overcome collective inertia. For example, the annual
UN climate summits following the Kyoto Treaty have resulted in one disappointment after
another for activists. Similarly, the frustrated hopes for harnessing banks and financial
systems are painful reminders about how much power those institutions wield over those who
would regulate them.
The ironic situation is that the whole system of relations involving environment,
energy, and economy seems tied to clearly understood human practices, but their evolved
complexities may be beyond human capacity to change. It is not clear whether these problems
266
should be cast as failures of the political challengers (whether conventional social movements
or DNA connectives) or as measures of the magnitude of the problems themselves, and of the
power imbalances that sway decision-makers.
Conclusion
Social fragmentation and the decline of group loyalties have given rise to an era of
personalized politics in which individual expression displaces collective action frames in the
embrace of political causes. The rise of personalized forms of political participation is
perhaps the defining change in the political culture of our era. This trend can be spotted in the
rise of large-scale, rapidly forming political participation aimed at a variety of targets,
ranging from parties and candidates, to corporations, brands, and transnational organizations.
The group-based “identity politics” of the “new social movements” that arose after the 1960s
still exist, but the recent period has seen more diverse mobilizations in which individuals are
mobilized around personal lifestyle values to engage with multiple causes such as economic
justice (fair trade, inequality, and development policies), environmental protection, and
worker and human rights. This large-scale individualized collective action is often
coordinated through digital media technologies, sometimes with political organizations
playing an enabling role, and sometimes with crowds using layers of social media to
coordinate action.
Some of these politics have specific consumerist styles, as in the many expressions of
concern about the social or environmental realities beyond the brand image of popular
products. Beyond consumer and lifestyle actions, large individualized collectivities have also
emerged around broader political agendas with the help of various social and digital media.
The so-called Arab Spring and various uprisings in Europe and the United States following
the world financial crisis suggest more general political capacities of individualized collective
action. Protest formations, such as the indignados in Spain and Occupy protests in the United
States and elsewhere, have focused attention on failings of the pervasive neoliberal economic
regime that became politically dominant during the recent era of globalization. Not only have
these protests triggered debate in the mass media, but public discussion space has opened to a
range of critics who argue that the neoliberal regime is headed for an inevitable and painful
meltdown that may force the adoption of more sustainable practices (Gilding 2011;
Martenson 2011). In the meantime, it seems a positive sign that some politicians, including
the long-conciliatory Barack Obama, began to talk about sustainability, while captains of
industry such as Bill Gates called for new variants on capitalism. These shifts in discourse
and perceptions are clearly related to opportunities seized by contemporary activists. If the
crisis and accompanying protests pointed out the flaws of the dominant political and
economic regimes, the political remedies were not as immediately obvious. Conventional
solutions such as pressuring partiesor forming new ones may not make much difference when
innovative choices seem limited by crisis conditions. Thus, it may be unreasonable to fault
connective action formations and their loosely tied communication-based organization for
lack of more fundamental change. Many of the issues in the globalized polity have long been
the focus of more conventionally organized challengers, from unions to social movements,
with no better results. What seems clear is that the DNA of personalized politics has
succeeded more than many other forms of protests in occupying the contemporary political
discourse space.
267
Notes GDP. Some estimates of the contribution
1. The first winner was Charles A. of the consumer economy to GDP were
Lindbergh in 1927, and others have even higher. The global economic crash
included Mohandas Ghandi, Franklin and its surrounding energy and
Roosevelt (twice), Hitler, Stalin, De environmental issues may well mark the
Gaulle, Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., end of an economic era.
Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg, along 6. It should be noted that this economic
with astronauts, scientists, popes, and justice agenda had long been advocated
business leaders. by a broad spectrum of collective action,
2. While this ethos of diversity and including conventional social movements
inclusiveness seems to have fueled and hybrid NGO advocacy networks that
greater volumes of personalized engaged large publics. Yet the more
politics on the Left, there are personalized “connective action”
interesting examples on the Right as networks somehow seized the
well, such as the Tea Party, which opportunity and raised the level of
gathered a broad spectrum of discussion. A
discontent under its antigovernment more complete overview of how
action frame. The ways in which the personalized participation fits into larger
boundaries of political sentiment may schemes of collective action is presented
be policed differently by these loose- in Bennett and Segerberg (2011).
tied Left- or Right-leaning networks is
an interesting empirical question. 7. Based on Silobreaker searches on
3. Individuation may also be associated November 20, 2011, and December 8,
with many authoritarian states that have 2011, for the co-occurrence of inequality
undermined civil society and thus help and occupy and third term co-
to account for the rise of digitally occurrences in all U.S. news and blogs
networked uprisings in Egypt and online.
elsewhere. 8. Silobreaker enables terms, such as
4. In the case of the Robin Hood Tax, the inequality, that may have many other
campaign featured Google maps dotted uses in other contexts to be filtered by
with tiny Robin Hood caps across the relevance in association with other terms
British landscape. Clicking on a cap (in this case, occupy). The relevance
revealed personal testimonials about why algorithms represent prominence of
an individual supported the tax. The placement of terms in documents,
Occupy protests quickly adopted the frequency of co-occurrence, and paths
slogan of “We are the 99%,” which of coassociation with other terms.
began on a Tumbler micro-blog where 9. The appearance of Charles Murray and
individuals took desktop photos of James Q. Wilson here reflects the buzz
themselves holding up a short account of surrounding Murray’s controversial and
their personal challenges in the 99 just-published book arguing that
percent. inequality is not a structural economic
5. Before the economic crash of 2008, U.S. problem involving power and advantage
consumer spending on goods and in the economic game but more the
services accounted for more than 60 result of the degradation of family values
percent of jobs and a similar amount of among low-income Americans.
268
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L Making Claims in Contentious Politics
CHARLES TILLY & SIDNEY TARROW
Making Claims
When a young English divinity student named Thomas Clarkson won a Latin Prize
with an essay on slavery at Cambridge in 1785, neither he nor his listeners imagined the
effect it would have on slavery in the British Empire. But as he sat down at the side of the
road on his way to Londonto take up a career as a Protestant minister, Clarkson reflected that
if the horrors he had uncovered about slavery were true, “it was time some person should see
these calamities to their end” (Hochschild 2005: 89). Clarkson turned out to be that person.
Together with a small band of antislavery advocates, he became the world’s first modern
social movement organizer. He wrote thousands of letters, organized petition drives, and
helped to launch the world’s first successful transnational movement. That movement
eventually ended the vicious violence of the slave trade and led to the abolition of slavery
around the Atlantic. It allowed English reformers to claim moral superiority over the newly
independent but slaveholding United States. The antislavery movement went through many
phases, suffered reversals during the repressive years of the Napoleonic wars, and required a
savage civil war to end slaveryin the United States. But it joined religious evangelicalism, the
politicalemancipation of Catholics, and parliamentary reform to create thepattern of modern
social movements in eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuryEngland.The movement that Clarkson
and his friends started looks decorousand even conservative to us today. But they made their
claims much associal movements still do. They stimulated the formation of committees, took
out newspaper ads, encouraged the deposing of petitions, gathered evidence, and laid it
before the House of Commons. Although the word boycott itself would not enter the language
for another century, they organized what was in effect a boycott of slave-produced sugar.
Britain’s antislavery activists also shocked the nation’s conscience by displaying instruments
of torture the slave owners used. In the process, they forged alliances with parliamentary and
literary opponents of slavery such as William Wilberforce and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. They
even sent Clarks onto help antislavery forces in France during the brief period when French
republicans were interpreting the Rights of Man to include people of color (Drescher 1991). It
took almost twenty years for Britain’s antislavery campaign to bring the Atlantic slave trade
to an end and another three decades for slavery toend in Britain’s colonies. But less than a
year after Clarkson and the committeebegan their campaign, “Britons were challenging
slavery in Londondebating societies, in provincial pubs, and across dinner tables
throughoutthe country” (Hochschild 2005: 213). In the newly independent UnitedStates,
opponents of the slave trade would eventually persuade Congressto make the trade illegal,
and it took a civil war to end slavery in the South.
Clarkson, his allies, his enemies, and public authorities on both sides of the Atlantic
were building a social movement.We could tell many different stories about antislavery. We
could treat it as a moral tale showing what determination can accomplish in the face of
difficult odds. We could think about it as an application of enlightened values, as an
expression of religious zeal, or as English capitalists’ attempt to promote free labor and free
trade. We could see it as an early example of a transnational social movement, a phenomenon
270
that has become important in this age of globalization. Different observers of European and
American antislavery campaigns have told all these tales, and more. Here we treat it as a
dramatic example of contentious politics, of people struggling with each other over which
political program will prevail. For another dramatic episode of contentious politics, fast-
forward 228 years to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
THE UKRAINIAN FALL
In November 2013, a protest movement erupted against President Viktor

Yanukovych’s decision to cancel a long-planned agreement between his economically-
strapped country and the European Union (EU). Yanukovych had been persuaded—his
enemies would say “bought”—by Russian President Vladimir Putin to draw back from
Europe by the inducement of a $15 billion loan if his country joined a Russian-led trade
group. European leaders responded that if Yanukovych accepted the Russian offer, all bets
were off for a Ukrainian link to the EU. Western Ukrainians—including most of the residents
of the country’s capital, Kiev—were outraged by Yanukovych’s move. Protesters in Kiev
soon occupied the “Maidan”—the city’s central square—evoking the country’s “Orange
Revolution” of 2002 (Beissinger 2011). They called first for Ukraine’s association with
Europe, then for an end to corruption, and increasingly for the President to resign.Those
protests were largely peaceful, and they soon “turned violent”—that is to say, the regime’s
riot police turned on them, killing eighty-four protesters and arresting hundreds more.
Outrage at the regime’s overreaction spread around the country and across Europe, and the
Maidan occupation fell into a pattern of barricade building, police charges, occupation of
government buildings, speeches by opposition politicians, and government warnings of
fascist infiltration. What had begun as a largely peaceful protest movement rapidly
militarized, with groups of young “hundreds” donning helmets and gas masks and carrying
improvised shields against the increasingly ineffective, but no less brutal, police. As the
confrontations escalated, international actors mobilized on oneside or another. In the West,
French, German and Polish envoys tried to forge a compromise that would save
Yanukovych’s face but give the protesters the link to the EU they wanted; in the East, Russian
President Putin offered Ukraine a down payment on his promised loan and urged him to
continue to stand fast against the protesters. The Russians then grudgingly agreed to the
Europeans’ compromise proposal, but suddenly, as quickly as he had cancelled the original
EU association deal, Yanukovych disappeared, only to reappear in the Russian Federation,
claiming to have been overthrown by a coup d’état. (It later turned out that he had been
abandoned by both army units and the special police forces on whichhe depended for his
survival). While the Maidan occupiers cheered jubilantly, opposition politiciansset up an
unelected provisional government, and accused Yanukovych ofmass killing, threatening to
take him to the International Criminal Court. In Washington, President Obama and Secretary
of State Kerry cheered the advent of the provisional government, while in Brussels, EU
Foreign commissioner Catherine Ashton spoke cautiously of a major injection of cash to
bolster the country’s economy. But talk of internal democracy and external bailout was soon
eclipsed by what happened in the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine between February 28 and
March 2. (See map, figure 1.1.)
271
Figure 1.1 Ukraine, Crimea, and the Kerch Connection to Russia (photo by Lonely Plantet /
Getty Images)
On those days, “little green men” in uniform began to appear at keypoints in the Crimea, an
area that had been part of Russia since the timeof Catherine the Great but was handed to
Ukraine by Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev in 1954, when the region was still part
of the of Soviet Union. The peninsula was heavily peopled by Russian speakers and was the
home of the Russian Black Sea fleet. Slowly, at first, and then increasinglyinsistently, Russian
armed forces surrounded Ukrainian military facilities in the region, took over its Parliament,
and the Kerch ferry crossing between the Crimea and Russia. Their identity became clear
when Sergey Aksyonov, the newly-appointed Prime Minister of the Crimea, called for
Russian intervention to protect the region’s citizens against armed attacks. Russian armored
vehicles soon rolled across the border as the Russian Duma declared it the country’s duty to
protect Russian speaking civilians from attacks it claimed were coming from “fascists,
nationalists, and anti-Semites” directed from Kiev. A full-scale military intervention, allied
with internal pro-Russian demonstrations, was underway. And, in a plebiscite on March 16, a
large majority of Crimean voters supported Crimea’s attachment to Russia. In the wake of
these events, western observers saw the Russian takeover as the start of the worst foreign
policy crisis since the Cold War. In Brussels, the EU and NATO fulminated that the attack
violated Russia’s commitment to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. In Washington,
President Obama launched a devastating series of economic sanctions, while in Moscow the
Kremlin propaganda machine revved up patriotic fervor to support the annexation. But more
was still to come: For no sooner was the Crimean peninsula detached from Ukraine than war
broke out between pro-Russian militants in the East of the
272
counry, aided by Russian troops, against the near-helpless agents of the Ukrainian state.
Soldiers without insignias took over government buildings in twelve southeastern cities of
Ukraine. They were helped by the inability of the new Ukrainian government to mount an
effective response to their pressures and by the presence of 40,000 Russian troops, backed by
a propaganda campaign beamed in from Moscow. A wave of domestic contention against a
weak and corrupt state had brought the collapse of a government, an internal
countermovement, and a partial military takeover by a neighboring state joined to a
nationalist rebellion.
CONTENTIOUS POLITICS
What do the campaign against the slave trade in eighteenth-century England and the
partial breakup and civil war in Ukraine in 2014 have in common? Although we can identify
many differences, these were both episodes of what we call contentious politics. In both,
actors made claims on authorities, used public performances to do so, drew on inherited
forms of collective action (our term for this is repertoires) and invented new ones, forged
alliances with influential members of their respective polities, took advantage of existing
political regime opportunities and made new ones,and used a combination of institutional and
extrainstitutional routines to advance their claims.
Contentious politics involves interactions in which actors make claims bearing on

other actors’ interests, leading to coordinated efforts on behalf of shared interests or
programs, in which governments are involved as targets, initiators of claims, or third parties.
Contentious politics thus brings together three familiar features of social life: contention,
collective action, and politics.
Contention involves making claims that bear on someone else’s interests. In everyday
life, contention ranges from small matters such as which television show we should watch
tonight to bigger questions such as whether your sister Sue should marry the man she is
dating. But it also takes place in football matches, rival advertising campaigns, and struggles
between cantankerous patients and irritable doctors. In the simplest version of contention, one
party makes claims on another. The parties are often persons, but one or the other can also be
agroup or even an institution; you can make a claim on your school or file a claim on the
government for unemployment benefits. In the elementary version, we can think of one party
as a subject (the maker of a claim) and the other as an object (the receiver of a claim). Claims
always involve at least one subject’s reaching visibly toward at least one object. You (subject)
may ask a friend (object) to pay back the money he borrowed from you yesterday. But claims
range from timid requests to strident demands to direct attacks, just so long as they would, if
realized, somehow affect the object’s well-being, the object’s interests. Often three or more
parties are involved, as when you demand that your friend pay you back the money he was
about to hand over to another creditor. Contention always brings together subjects, objects,
and claims.
Collective action means coordinating efforts on behalf of shared interests or

programs. Football teams engage in collective action, but so do churches, voluntary
associations, and neighbors who clear weeds from a vacant lot. When you go to school or to
work for a big company, you enter an organization that is carrying on collective action. But
most of the collective action involved occurs with no significant contention and no
273
government involvement. The bulk of collective action takes place outside contentious
politics.
Most contention also occurs outside politics. We enter the realm of politics when we
interact with agents of governments, either dealing with them directly or engaging in
activities bearing on governmental rights, regulations, and interests. Politics likewise ranges
from fairly routine matters such as applying for a driver’s license to momentous questions
such as whether the country should go to war. But most of politics involves little or no
contention. Most of the time, people register for benefits, answer census takers, cash
government checks, or show their passports to immigration officers without making
significant claims on other people.The presence or absence of governments in contention
makes a difference for three big reasons. First, people who control governments gain
advantages over people who don’t. Even where the government is weak, controlling it gives
you the means of collecting taxes, distributing resources, and regulating other people’s
behavior. As a result, political contention puts at risk, however slightly, the advantages of
those who currently enjoy governmental power. Second, governments always make rules
governing contention: who can make what collective claims, by what means, with what
outcomes. Even weak governments have some influence over the prevailing forms of claim
making, and they resist anyone else’s building up competitive centers of power within their
territories. Third, governments control substantial coercive means: armies, police forces,
courts, prisons, and the like. The availability of governmental coercion gives an edge to
political contention that rarely exists outside the political arena. In political contention, large-
scale violence always remains a possibility, however faint. Contention connected to
governments does resemble contention in families, sports, churches, and businesses in some
regards. We will sometimes call attention to those parallels. But we single out government-
connected contention because it has these distinctive properties.
Let us immediately rule out a few possible misunderstandings. Restriction of

contentious politics to claim making that somehow involves governments by no means
implies that governments must figure as the makers or receivers of contentious claims. On the
contrary, as the book proceeds, we will encounter a wide range of contention in which
nongovernmental actors are pitted against each other and make claims on religious,
economic, ethnic, or other nongovernmental holders of power. Remember the story with
which this chapter began? In both England and America, antislavery activists directed their
claims first against slaveholders and only then against governments, which were drawn into
the action because they either supported or opposed slavery and only they could resolve the
legal and physical conflicts that slavery fostered. As you move through the book, you will
read sustained discussions of many such conflicts: American campus activism against South
Africa’s apartheid in the 1980s; changes in the repertoire of contention in theUnited States
since the 1960s and in Argentina before and after the dictatorship of the 1970s and 1980s; the
rebellion of the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, in the 1990s; nationalist and
democratization protests in the breakup of the former Soviet Union; transformations of
American women’s lives by participation in feminist organizations; lethal conflicts in
Northern Ireland and Sudan, and the revolution in Nicaragua; the transnational “Global
Justice” movement and transnational Islamism; the struggle for marriage equality in the
United States and the tumultuous Arab Spring that are ongoing as this book goes to press. All
of these conflicts eventually drew governments—local or national—into the action, as did our
initial story of the struggle against slavery in England. But they began by pitting
nongovernmental actors against each other. Let us be clear. We do not deny that processes
274
much like those occurring in contentious politics also occur in nonpolitical settings. That is
actually the point of distinguishing collective action and contention from politics. We also do
not deny that some forms of contention—such as religious movements—aim primarily at
internal change within individuals. But even these frequently come into contact with
governments—for example, when evangelical Christians attempt to incorporate religious
values into the public school curriculum. Finally, sometimes a corporationthat runs a
company town, an international military force such as NATO, or an international institution
such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organization behaves much like a
government. Those cases come close enough to our definition of contentious politics for this
book to include them. Still, we focus our attention on the convergence of collective action,
contention, and politics because the area of their overlap has distinctive—and potentially
dangerous—properties.
Figure 1.2 shows how contention, collective action, and politics converge in contentious
politics. Many scholars would draw different boundaries—for example, by treating collective
action as the fundamental process. In that view, such episodes as antislavery in Britain and
the conflicts in Ukraine in 2013–2014 qualify simply as special instances of collective action.
Others define politics as consisting of struggles for power however and wherever they occur.
They thus take in all of contentious politics, add to it struggles outside the range of
government, but treat routine political transactions as something else. In this line of thought,
many analysts distinguish between real politics—our contentious politics plus similar
struggles outside political arenas—and public administration.
Contention Politics
Collective Action
Contentious Politics
Figure 1.2: Components of Contentious Politics
275
Many students of the subject use the term social movement to covermost or all of the
overlap between contention and collective action,whether it happens in politics or some other
arena. The same analystsoften extend the term social movement to what we will call social
movementbases: the social background, organizational resources, and cultural frameworks of
contention and collective action. Our book provides plentyof evidence about social
movements. But we recommend resisting expansion of the term to embrace most or all of
contentious politics, its social bases, and its cultural contexts. Such an expansion has several
drawbacks. First, it hampers comparison across different types of contention by collecting
them under the same label. Second, if different forms of contention all count as social
movements, that expansion makes it difficult to examine transitions among them.
Third, it obscures a fundamental fact: that social movements are a historical—and

not a universal—category. As our story of British antislavery shows, the social movement as
we know it took shape about two centuries ago, and it only became widely available as a
means of popular claimmaking during the twentieth century (Tilly and Wood 2009). It
emerged through episodes such as antislavery, found its feet in the early nineteenth century
through labor and other struggles, and eventually became a staple of popular politics across
the world’s less authoritarian regimes during the twentieth century. American civil rights
activism formed a social movement; so did the movement for same-sex marriage, which ends
this book. What qualifies as a social movement? We define a movement as a sustained
campaign of claim making, using repeated performances that advertise the claim, based on
organizations, networks, traditions, and solidarities that sustain these activities. But most
forms of contentious politics are not social movements. Social movements combine (1)
sustained campaigns of claim making; (2) an array of public performances including
marches, rallies, demonstrations, creation of specialized associations, public meetings, public
statements, petitions, letter writing, and lobbying; (3) repeated public displays of worthiness,
unity, numbers, and commitment by such means as wearing colors, marching in disciplined
ranks, sporting badges that advertise the cause, displaying signs, chanting slogans, and
picketing public buildings. They draw on (4) the organizations, networks, traditions, and
solidarities that sustain these activities—social movement bases. As familiar as it has become
to citizens of Western countries, this combination of campaigns, performances, and displays
only took shape a few hundred years ago, and it is still rare or nonexistent through much of
the contemporary world. The recent explosion of digital activism may even be making social
movements obsolete. As seen in the Poland’s Solidarity movement and the American
women’s movement, the combinations of public displays of worthiness, unity, numbers, and
commitment produced significantly less violent confrontation than the three forms of lethal
conflict: ethnic religious strife, civil wars, and revolutions. Social movement politics and
lethal conflicts often co-occur and intersect in the same places.
CONTENTIOUS INTERACTION
Our two landmark episodes—British antislavery and the Ukrainian-Russian conflicts

from 2013 on reveal intersections among contention, politics, and collective action. Though
buffeted by the varying winds of reaction and reform, antislavery was a true social
movement. Over a period of more than thirty years, its participants sustained a powerful
campaign of contentious politics both within and against Britain’s political institutions. The
Ukrainian conflict ranged from a short-term movement coalition comprising masses in the
streets and opposition leaders, to an armed struggle between militants and their state
opponents with the backing of a foreign power. It led to the full-scale conflict between Russia
276
and Ukraine, with the backing of its western supporters, that continues as this book goes to
press. When contention, politics, and collective action get together, something distinctive
happens: power, shared interests, and government policy come into play. Claims become
collective, which means they depend on some sort of coordination among the people making
the claims. They also become political, at least by assuming the presence of governments as
monitors, guarantors, or regulators of collective claim making and often more directly as
subjects or objects of claims. In those circumstances, we will speak about groups that
sometimes make claims as political actors. We will call the collective names that they give
themselves or that other people give them—those workers, we citizens, us women, and so on
—their political identities. People often make collective claims on governments, and
governments make claims on whole categories of people. Governments also involve
themselves in how people outside government make claims on each other. Sometimes they
facilitate contention by opening opportunities for challengers but sometimes they suppress it:
Lawmakers make laws banning some kinds of assemblies, police arrest unruly demonstrators,
judges try people for seditious claims, and officials intervene when their clients or
constituents are fighting collectively. The intersection of contention, politics, and collective
action contains events ranging from local ethnic competitionto great revolutions.This book
looks hard and systematically at that intersection. It lays out a simple set of tools for
describing and explaining contentious politics in all its varieties. The tools consist of concepts
and of causal connections among the phenomena singled out by those concepts. We make a
rough distinction between description and explanation. Description consists of specifying
what special properties and variations in contention deserve serious attention. Explanation
entails showing what produces those special properties and variations. The distinction
between description and explanation remains rough; sometimes one special property or brand
of variation helps to explain another. When we compare Ukraine’s quasi-revolution with
other mobilizations against authoritarian regimes, we actually move toward explanation by
identifying relevant differences among the regimes and their oppositions.
As Doug McAdam (1999) writes, “a viable model of the individual must take full
account of the fundamentally social/relational nature of human existence”(xiii). Some
students of contention give primary attention to itssocial bases—for example, to social
networks, organizations, cultural predispositions,and the political and ideological traditions
that nourish contention.While we give ample space to these bases of contention, we are
primarily concerned with the mechanisms and processes that involve challengers with their
targets, public authorities, and third parties like the media and the public in sequences of
interaction. For example, whenwe turn to social movements, we focus on the mechanisms
and processes that transform the bases of contention into social movement campaigns. Putting
these elements together will help us to resolve a fundamental paradox of contentious politics:
its recurring combination of variations and regularities. Contentious politics features
enormous variation in its issues, actors, interactions, claims, sequences, and outcomes from
time to time and place to place. But it also displays great regularities in the ways that
contention unfolds. We will see how similar mechanisms and processes produce distinctive
political trajectories and outcomes depending on their combinations and on the social bases
and political contexts in which they operate. We can begin to capture some of the recurrent,
historically embedded character of contentious politics by means of two related theatrical
metaphors and a military one: performances, repertoires, and campaigns.
• Contentious performances are relatively familiar and standardized waysin which one set of
political actors makes collective claims on someother set of political actors. Among other
277
performances, participantsin Ukraine’s protest movement against President Yanukovych
usedmass demonstrations as visible, effective performances.
• Contentious repertoires are arrays of performances that are currently known and available
within some set of political actors. England’s antislavery activists helped to invent the
demonstration as a political performance, but they also drew on petitions, lobbying, press
releases, public meetings, and a number of other performances. Ukraine’s Maidan protesters
assembled in a public place, but they also built a tent city, defended it with shields against
police repression, and attacked government buildings until the President and his entourage
fled thecountry.
• Contentious campaigns are combinations of performances that “focus on a particular policy

and usually disassemble when that policy is implemented or overturned” (Almeida 2014: 6).
Observers sometimes refer to such campaigns as “movements,” but in many cases they
involve arrays of actors, including movements, interest groups, political parties, the media,
interested onlookers, and state agents.
CLAIM MAKING AS PERFORMANCE
Once we look closely at collective making of claims, we see that particular instances
improvise on shared scripts. Presentation of a petition, taking a hostage, or mounting a
demonstration constitutes a performance that links at least two actors, a claimant, and an
object of claims. Innovation occurs incessantly on the small scale, but effective claims
depend on a recognizable relation to their setting, on relations between the parties, and on
previous uses of the claim-making form. Performances evolve over time. Consider how
Clarkson and his colleagues used petitions to inundate Parliament with antislavery demands.
One of the most traditional forms of making claims, petitions originally came from individual
petitioners seeking benefits for themselves. They bowed before their lords to request personal
exemption from military service or lowering of their excise tax. The British antislavery group
turned the petition into an instrument for mass claim making, accumulating thousands of
signatures on petitions to demand redress for others. This was the origin of the on-line
petition of today. Now think of the massing of protesters in the streets of Kiev in 2013. In the
1830s, British Chartists adopted the mass demonstration, then anew form, as they demanded
political rights for working people (Thompson 1984). In the mid-nineteenth century, during
what we remember as the 1848 revolution, such demonstrations traversed Europe on the part
of workers, nationalists, middle-class reformers, and revolutionary socialists. That led to a
known change in the repertoire of contention: By 2013, Ukrainians knew exactly how to
organize demonstrations that would challenge the rules, reinforce their own solidarity, and
gain international support. All forms of contention rest on performances, but performances
range from direct assaults on others to theatricals staged for nearby or distant audiences
(Taylor and Van Dyke 2004: 271; Tarrow 2011). In the eighteenth century, people mainly
engaged in performances that were specific to their particular claims, such as seizing grain,
invading landlords’ fields, barricading their streets, and pulling down wrongdoers’ houses
(Tilly 2005). Think of the Boston colonists who attacked the home of an official charged with
collecting the hated stamp tax in 1765, or of those who dumped tea into Boston Harbor in
1775. Both groups were engaging in particular performances. But by the twentieth century,
many contentious performances had spread around the world and become what we call
modular: performances that could be adopted and adapted across a wide range of conflicts
and sites of contention by a broad range of actors. Think again of the protest demonstration. It
278
grew out of—and at first resembled—the religious procession to a place of worship. It turned
contentious as demonstrators moved from a place of assembly to a site from which they could
confront the targets of their claims. Later, it became the central form of action, mounted
routinely to demonstrate a claim before the public. With the diffusion of mass media, that
public expanded from neighbors who witnessed a demonstration passing beneath their
windows to a wider range of citizens who could watch it on their television sets. By the
twentieth century, it had become the major conventional form of contention used by
claimmakers across the world. By the early twenty-first century, as we will see, marchers
protesting for free speech in Paris knew how to organize a demonstration and what they did
not know, they quickly learned from social media. More recently, reaching people through the
Internet has become a favored means of mobilization. For example, “hactivism,” the practice
of infiltrating the computer of a transnational firm or a government to disrupt its routines, is
becoming more and more common (Samuels 2004). So far the Internet’s major role in
contentious politics has been either (1) to assemble people in demonstrations at one site or
(2)to coordinate demonstrations in many sites across a broad range of territory; and it may
also be emerging (3) as a form of “connective action”itself (Bennett and Segerberg 2013). A
good example of the Internet’s firstsort of use was the 1999 Seattle demonstration against the
World Trade Organization. A major example of the second was the coordination of
demonstrations across the globe against the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. An example
of the third was the “Occupy” movement of 2011–2012, which existed “online” as much as
“offline.” None of these has done away with the classical set of contentious politics
performances but they have progressively increased the ability of organizers to expand their
reach. The petition, the demonstration, and the Internet-based call to action have become
modular performances, generic forms that can be adapted to a variety of local and social
circumstances. The advantage of such modular performances is their dual generality and
specificity. Seen generically, they have features that adapt to a wide variety of circumstances
and have meaning to a wide variety of potential participants and audiences. American
students demonstrate on collegecampuses, French farmers demonstrate outside the prefecture,
Israeli settlers demonstrate beside the Wailing Wall, and Hong Kong democracy protesters
demonstrate in Hong Kong’s business district—all are usingsome variant of the same modular
performance. But seen in particular circumstances, demonstrations offer a variety offacets
that can be attached to local knowledge. Skillful organizers adapt the generic form to local
circumstances, embedding a modular form such as the demonstration in the languages,
symbols, and practices that make them compelling in those circumstances. Of course, not all
contentious performances are as orderly, theatrical, and peaceful as the demonstration. Take
the confrontational forms of contentious politics that exploded in Western Europe and the
United States during the 1960s. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and theUnited States
had dominated the early 1950s, restricting protest in generaland confrontational protest in
particular. But the African American awakenings of the mid-1950s and the 1960s, the student
and antiwar movements of the late 1960s, the women’s and gay rights movements of the
1970s, the peace and environmental movements of the 1980s, the collapse of communism at
the end of that decade, and the Arab Spring revolutions of 2010–2012 expanded all kinds of
protest and particularly of confrontational and violent forms of contention. Now think of how
young protesters after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri burned and
overturned cars when a grand jury absolved a police officer of using unnecessary force. They
were using a performance that had become a standard part of the American urban repertoire
that emerged in the riots of the mid-1960s against police violence. These two generations of
protesters were not connected to each other but the performance of burning cars during social
unrest became a standard part of the American repertoire. Finally, think of the occupation of
279
public space organized by the “Occupy” movement in the United States and the “Indignation”
protesters in Europe in response to the Great Recession of 2008–2013; they picked up on a
performance that goes back to the nineteenth century and reached its peak in the sit-in
protests of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war era of the 1960s. The same performance with
more profound implications was used by the occupants of Tahrir Square in Cairo in 2011,
when they launched a revolutionary message that spread across the Middle East and North
Africa. Dieter Rucht has provided us with a running portrait tracing how different forms of
contentious politics converged in one archetypical European country, Germany, over this
period. Rucht and his colleagues examined contention from major newspapers for the years
1950–1988 for West Germany and for both halves of Germany over the following decade
(2005). His findings show a dramatic increase in the numbers of protests in the 1960s and
smaller, but still substantial, increases over the next three decades. Protests rose from a low of
just over 1,100 in the 1950s toover 4,000 in the 1990s. Not only that: The mix of
conventional, confrontational, and violent activities changed dramatically between the
beginning of the West German Republic and the end of the century. Although no linear trend
appeared in the proportion of “demonstrative”protests (about 50 percent at the beginning and
at the end of the period), a net decline occurred in the percentage of routine expressions of
claims, what Rucht calls procedural protests and appeals. In contrast, Rucht’s evidence shows
increases in the proportion of “confrontational” protests in the 1980s and of “violent
encounters” in the 1990s. The declines correspond largely to the tactics of the peace
movement, while the later increases in violence reflect the rise of right-wing anti-immigrant
groups and of the absorption of East Germany. Figure 1.3 summarizes these data for West
Germany through 1988 and for the expanded country between 1989 and 1990.
DEPE
D
Figure 1.3: Protest Events in Germany, 1950–1990
Source: Data provided by Dieter Rucht.
280
Sources Of Repertoire Change
This takes us to the factors that bring about changes in repertoires. Wecan distinguish
two major kinds of process in repertoire change: the effects of periods of rapid political
change and the outcome of incrementally changing structural factors. The first are more
dramatic, sometimes produce lasting change, but are more easily routinized and repressed as
authorities regain control of contention. Incremental changes are less dramatic, depend on
factors that evolve more slowly, but can be more enduring. With respect to periods of rapid
political change, during major cycles of contention, the ordinary preference for familiar
claim-making routines dissolves in spurts of innovation. American civil rights activists did
not simply use the decorous old social movement forms they inherited but deliberately
disrupted existing routines. Periods of rapid political change produce sequences of innovation
in repertoires, and successive innovations largely account for the ebb and flow of movement
activity (Kriesi etal. 1995; McAdam 1983). During such times of rapid political change, we
find both actions andreactions. As each new round of claim making begins to threaten the
interestsof (or provide new opportunities for) political actors who had previouslyremained
inactive, a spiral of contention ensues. Social movementsengender countermovements.
Challengers’ allies appear andretreat. The state, at first thrown off balance by new forms of
contention,eventually reacts and in some cases turns to repression. The extremecase arrives in
a revolutionary situation: a deep split in control ofcoercive means. During a revolutionary
situation, every actor’s interest isat risk, and many actors therefore mobilize for action. We
saw exactly thatshift in the Ukrainian conflicts of 2013–2014. As we will argue, the major
constraints and incentives for contentious politics are political opportunity structures, and
most of these are local and national. But we think it is important to look beyond the nation-
state at processes such as the shift of some kinds of contention to international institutions,
the framing of local issues as the results of global problems, and the formation of
transnational networks and movement coalitions. A recent major change is globalization, the
increasing economic integration of the planet.
In contrast to the effects of periods of rapid change, incrementalchanges in

repertoires are less dramatic, but more decisive in the long run. The major causes of
incremental change sort into three main categories:
• Connections between claim making and everyday social organization. For example,
mothers bereft of bread for their children gather around the granary whose owner they
suspect of hoarding flour. Land-poor peasants who believe that the landlord stole their land
sometimes occupy it. And workers, whose one effective tool is the fact that their labor is
necessary to make the wheels of production turn, strike to prevent employers from the
successful pursuit of profit.
• Cumulative creation of a signaling system by contention itself. For example, over the past
two centuries, French claim makers have drawn on a dense experience with contention. Three
major revolutions, a revolutionary commune, more than a hundred years of strikes,
barricades, marches, and demonstrations all lie under the surface of French contention today,
to be drawn on, innovated upon, and replayed in endless permutations (Tartakowsky 2005;
Tilly 1986).
• Operation of the regime as such. Regimes sort performances into prescribed, tolerated, and
forbidden categories, dispensing threats and penalties to claimants who move onto forbidden
281
ground. When Clarkson and his colleagues perfected the petition into a tool of mass
mobilization, they did so in the context of a parliamentary regime that had recognized
petitions as legitimate forms of collective action for centuries. But when French radicalism
and Napoleonic arms were threatening Britain, reformers paid the penalty with imprisonment
and worse. Repertoires draw on the identities, social ties, and organizational forms that
constitute everyday social life. From those identities, social ties, and organizational forms
emerge both the collective claims that people makeand the means they have for making
claims. In the course of contendingor watching others contend, people learn the interactions
that can make apolitical difference as well as the locally shared meanings of those
interactions. The changing interaction of everyday social organization, cumulative experience
with contention, and regime intervention produces incremental alterations in contentious
performances. At any given moment, however, that interaction promotes clustering of claim
making in a limited number of recognizable performances, a repertoire. Repertoires are the
source of tactical performances that combine inprotest campaigns. Campaigns can combine
strikes, rallies, protest marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and obstructions. “Opposition groups or
temporary alliances often piece together campaigns with a unifying set of slogans and
specified goals” (Almeida 2014: 6). They sometimes plan organized violence, but, more
typically, when violence occurs it is as the result of the interaction of protesters and the
“forces of order.” Where social movements are sustained. campaigns blend into longer
sequences of contention, but where movements are weak—as inmuch of the Global South—
campaigns tend to end when a particular policy is implemented or overturned.
What’s Coming
The comparison of eighteenth century British antislavery with Ukrainian conflicts

from 2013 on sent us on a fresh path across bumpy terrain. We have seen how contention,
collective action, and politics overlap in contentious politics: interactive, collective making of
claims that bear on other people’s interests and involve governments as claimants, objects of
claims, or third parties. Social movements qualify as a form of contentious politics, but so do
revolutions, civil wars, and a wide variety of other struggles this book takes up. In all these
forms of contention, distinctive claim-making performances and repertoires vary from setting
to setting and regime to regime. Some of those performances are modular; as with the street
demonstration, they transfer easily from setting to setting and regime to regime. They build
on social bases belonging to the setting or regime. America’s changing contentious politics
since 1955, for example, often involved some widely recognizable performances such as
street demonstrations. But participants, claims, objects of claims, and forms all grew from
particular features of the changing American regime. To explain change and variation in
repertoires, we must look at the current pace of political change in the regime at hand,
identify incremental changes inthe regime’s social structure, then figure out how the two
affect everyday social organization, people’s cumulative experience with contention, and
current operation of the regime. With those elements in place, we begin the adventure of
explaining change and variation in the forms, participants, issues, objects, and outcomes of
contentious politics.
282

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Understanding Culture,

Society, and Politics

Authors and publishers may email or contact FILCOLS at filcols@gmail.com or (02)

Development Team of the UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Chapter 1: Introducing Culture, Society, and Politics............................................1

Chapter 2: Tracing Human Evolution and Sociocultural and Political

Chapter 3: Becoming a Member of Society...........................................................48

Chapter 4: Organizing Society................................................................................66

Chapter 5: Ranking Groups in Society..................................................................81

Chapter 6: Making Society Better..........................................................................99

2. Political and leadership structures

Social and Political Stratification

IV. LEARNING COMPETENCIES

1. Examine stratification from the functionalist and conflict perspectives

Social and Political Stratification

Activity 2.KWLHS Matrix

Theories of social stratification

 How do we assess the importance of a particular occupation? Do rewards

B. Social conflict perspective

Weberian social conflict perspective

C. Symbolic Interactionist perspective

Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage based on common ancestry, language,

Social reproduction of inequality

Social capital refers to “features of social organization, such as networks,

Symbolic capital refers to the resources available to an individual on the basis

Activity 3.Stop, Look, Examine (Triad)

Key Ideas Manifestation/s Reaction/s

We size up people by looking for clues to their social standing.

Global stratification and inequality

One system of classifying countries is according to a Three Worlds Model:

The revised system of classification is not based on ideology or political structure

Middle-income countries: The 70 middle-income countries are those with a standard

1. Modernization theory. Walt Rostow explains global inequality in terms of

How to address global inequalities? Rostow’s modernization theory

2. Dependency theory. This views global inequality as a result of the historical

How to address global inequalities? The dependency theory claims that

Activity 4.MoDe Diagram

THE BOX OF GLOBAL EQUALITY

Material:Gans, Herbert. 1991. “The Uses of Poverty,”Down to Earth Sociology, J.

Material:Rodil, Rudy B. 2004. The Minoritization of Indigenous Communities in

Material: Bello, Walden. 2005. “Multilateral Punishment: The Philippines in the

Activity 6. Fact or Fiction

What I Want What I Have How Did I

Knowing the various sociological perspectives in examining stratification, I learned that

Learning the dynamics of social and political stratification, Irealized that

It is important to learn social and political stratification

Case Study Format

Students will be rated using the following rubric.

Cultural, Social and Political Change

B. New challenges to human adaptation and social change

C. Responding to social, political, and cultural change

IV. LEARNING COMPETENCIES

At the end of the chapter, the learner is expected to:

Activity 2. Decode And Link It!

What is Social Change?

Characteristics of social change (ibid.)

The process of social change has four major characteristics:

2. Social change is sometimes intentional but is often unplanned. Today’s high-

Social change has many causes.

Third is diffusion, or the spread of cultural attributes from one culture to

B. Conflict and change

C. Ideas and change

For Emile Durkheim, modernization is defined by an increasing division of labor. The