The Uses of Complicity in the Changing Mise-en-Scne of Anthropological Fieldwork Author(s): George E. Marcus Source: Representations, No.

59, Special Issue: The Fate of "Culture": Geertz and Beyond (Summer, 1997), pp. 85-108 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928816 . Accessed: 17/08/2013 18:57
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Representations.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

GEORGE

E. MARCUS

The Uses of Complicityin the Changing Mise-en-Scene of AnthropologicalFieldwork

correspondence, connexion, talk. relationship; Reference, Rapport: Report, on another. can beexercised action byoneperson in which mesmeric A state conformity. orscientific in literary, artistic, especially co-operation; labour, Collaboration: United work. another. in conjunction with Collaborate: To work State in an evilaction. ofbeing an accomplice; partnership Complicity:Thebeing orinvolved. complex as the thelatter with in anyaffair being regarded another, Complice: One associated principal.'
BROADLY influential HIS MOST essay,"Deep IN WHAT IS PERHAPS Clifford Geertzopens witha tale of fieldPlay: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight," among workin whichthe rapportthatis so much soughtafterbyanthropologists In 1958, of complicity.2 the peoples theystudyis achieved througha circumstance Geertzand his wifemoved to a remoteBalinese villageto take up, in the tradition observation thathas givendistincthesortof participant of BronislawMalinowski, in were to fit theirinitialefforts tionto the ethnographicmethod.Unfortunately, "people seemed to look and studied indifference: met withmarked inattention rightthroughus witha gaze focusedseveralyardsbehind us on some more actual about ten days after stone or tree."3However,theirstatuschanged dramatically thatwas raided bythe police. Geertz theirarrival,when theyattendeda cockfight and his wiferan fromthe invadingpolice along withthe restof the village,and when theywere finallydiscovered by a policeman and questioned about their presence, they were passionatelydefended by the village chief,who said they From the about any cockfight. belonged in the villageand did not knowanything were in different: they nextmorningon, theirsituation thevillagewas completely no longer invisible,and theyhad indeed achieved the kind of relationshipthat

REPRESENTATIONS

59 * Summer 1997 ?

THE REGENTS

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

85

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

produce the account of a culwould allow themto do theirworkand eventually thatfollowsthisopening tale of fieldwork-an account thatbecame turalartifact analysis in which deep a widely assimilatedexemplar of a styleof interpretive meanings are derived fromthe close observationof a society'smost quotidian events.Geertz concludes his anecdote bysaying, recipe in a viceraidis perhaps generalizable nota very or almost caught, Getting caught, butforme work, rapport, field ofanthropological necessity that mysterious forachieving intoa society acceptance complete well.It led to a suddenand unusually very itworked insideforoutsiders to penetrate. It gaveme thekindof immediate, difficult extremely enough notfortunate that anthropologists mentality" viewgraspofan aspectof"peasant from armedauthorities do notget.4 normally with their subjects to fleeheadlong in the ironicentanglementof interested In Geertz'sanecdote I am primarily trainedfrom withrapportthathe draws. Indeed, foranthropologists complicity the 1950s throughthe 1980s, rapporthas been the powerfulshorthandconcept subjects that is used to stand for the thresholdlevel of relationswithfieldwork for anthropologistsact as informants effectively necessaryforthose subjectsto who, once that rapport is established,are then able to pursue their scientific, "outsider"inquirieson the "inside." givenin the OED forthe word rapport-from"talk" The range of definitions to the unusual meaning of "a state in which to "relationship"to "conformity" mesmericaction can be exercisedbyone person on another"-aptly conveysthe mix of senses of thiskey figurewithinthe ideology of anthropologicalpractice. complex stories,debates, views, Of course, behind thisfigureare the immensely imthatanthropologicalfieldwork and critiquesthatsurround the relationships relationshipshas moved from poses. Since the 1960s, thisprobing of fieldwork ethos-building professionaltalk-a regulativeideal-to a more formal informal, on fieldwork and essayson anthropology's found in both reflections articulation distinctivemethod, discussions in which Geertz himself has been a seminal, voice.5 though ambivalent, much of thisdiscussionhas assumed the essentialdesirability Until recently, of rapport-it remains the favoredcondensed view and disciand achievability plinaryemblem of the ideal conditionof fieldwork-even while the path to rapuncertainties, happenport seems alwaysto have been fraughtwithdifficulties, However,thereare now signsof the fear,and self-doubt. stance,ethicalambiguity, giventhechanging displacementof thisfoundationalcommonplaceof fieldwork, in whichanthropologicalresearchis now frequently being constimise-en-scene as such,is emerging tuted.It is probablya healthy signthatno replacementfigure, is of the nature of fieldwork to take rapport'splace. Rather,a deep reassessment thedifferent conditionsin whichitmust beginningto occur as a resultof defining be designed and conceptualized. Purely as a means of lending perspectiveto and representingthe set of anthropologicalpracticeand the waythatit is thought changes thatare affecting
86 REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Indeed, about, I have chosen in thisessayto emphasize theconceptof complicity. storiesof achievingrapportare in some wayentangled withacts manyfieldwork has a certain as in Geertz'sepochal anecdote. But while complicity of complicity, kinship of meaning with rapport, it is also its "evil twin,"so to speak. (In this as including both the of complicity regard, I appreciate the OED's definitions "stateof being complex or involved"and "partnershipin an evil action.") In no as a candidate fora new shorthandor commonway am I promotingcomplicity practicein our changed circumstances-its "dark"connotaplace of disciplinary don't lend it to thatuse. Rather,a focuson the termwillserve as a tionscertainly device for tracinga certain critique,or at least complexation,of the valorized fromwithin the reigningfigureof raprelationships understandingof fieldwork in whichthe figureof relationships conceptionof fieldwork portto an alternative rapport has lost much of itspower as a regulativeideal. In thefollowing section,then,I wantto explore thewaysin whichGeertzdealt within of fieldwork rapport,since his representations withthe issue of complicity representfor me the most subtle understandingsof the traditionalideology of fieldwork practiceat its apogee. Followingthat,I want to address two directions and rhetoric tookin the 1980s, producing thatcritiquesof ethnographic authority relations (a an unprecedentedlyreflexiveand criticalperspectiveon fieldwork perspectivethatGeertz unquestionablyhelped to inspireand fromwhichhe inhas distancedhimself).6 terestingly One of these directionsdisplaces rapportwithan ideal of collaborationthat and avoids both preserves the traditional,enclosed mise-en-sceneof fieldwork thatGeertz himselfsaw as so paying explicitattentionto the issue of complicity entangled withthe veryachievementof rapport. The other direction,aptlyexconfronts directly nostalgia,"7 pressed in Renato Rosaldo's notionof "imperialist in fieldwork within thebroader historical contextof colorelationships complicity nialism in which the traditionalmise-en-sceneof ethnographyhas always been of thatcontextto consituated; but it failsto go beyond the ethicalimplications sider the cognitiveones. thatis largelyfree of the Finally,I want to offera conceptionof complicity connotations of rapport.In so doing,I wantto movebeyondthepredomprimary in past views inantand troublesomeethicalimplications associatedwithcomplicity of thefieldwork of anthropologicalpracticeto an understanding relationship that different visionof the contemporary entails a substantially mise-en-sceneof anhere retainsitsethicalissues,but it does so in thropologicalresearch.Complicity of the space and positioning a waythatforcesa rethinking of the anthropologistinformant as it has been commonly relationshipthatis at the heart of fieldwork conceived. The largerstakeof thediscussionthatI wantto develop is indeed the current to thechanging level of self-conscious awarenessand response of anthropologists circumstancesin which theynow work-what I have referredto earlier as the in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity 87

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

been manytheoretical Of course therehave recently of fieldwork. mise-en-scene and directconceptual discussionsof these changing circumstances-the talk of cultures8transculturalprocesses, global-local relations,and deterritorialized these discussionshave meant for the deeply but it is not clear what,if anything, ingrained and reassuring ideologies of fieldworkpractice. Until these macrochanges are understood at the heart of anthropology'sdistinctivemethod, in have termsof the commonplacesand powerfulfiguresbywhichanthropologists as an ideology of professionalculture,it is quite likelythat conceived fieldwork and thecentralrelationship conceptionin use of themise-en-scene the traditional willremainimmune fromthe more radical implito informant of anthropologist changing visionsand discussionsof anthropology's cationsof the new theoretical objects of study.A considerationof these changes withinanthropology'ssacred as domain, so to speak, is preciselywhat I intendto initiateby tracingcomplicity an integralbut underplayeddimensionof rapportthathas eventuallybeat first come an independent means of understandinghow certain deep assumptions be modifiedin line withothermightfinally and commonplaces about fieldwork about how theirobjects and conwise clear perceptionsamong anthropologists textsof studyare changing.

Geertz and Complicity

toproduce highly most about. .. these attempts But what interesting is,tomeanyway,

inwhich the the text texts self anthropological even, supersaturated "author-saturated," near toidentical, the text arerepresented as being andthe that creates very creates self here and isvery little that them. There confidence note suffuses isthe strong ofdisquiet isnot Theimagery compensating malaise. scientific hope, of ofoutright afairamount orofbear-hug self-rejection, dispelling a la Malinowski, intimacy inner weakness, isvery much believed in.It isofestrangement, hypocrisy, a la Read,neither ofwhich
is not justpractically difficult. disillusion. BeingThere domination, helplessness, aboutitaltogether.9 There is something disruptive

anecdote, forGeertz a certainkindof As we have seen in the cockfight of his signaturestyleas generatesrapport. In a manner characteristic complicity in this passage Geertz seems to make lightof a figureor a writerand thinker, commonplace of his discipline-rapport-while remainingpassionatelycommitthefigurein theshadow strengthens ted to hisversionof it-a versionthatactually of his playful,trenchantcritiqueof it. He may disdain his discipline'stoo-easily he assimilatedshoptalk-about, for example, the figureof rapport-but finally way,preservesthe traditionalsense improvesupon thattalkand, in a committed of the craftthat the figureof rapport stands for.In "Deep Play,"the ethnographer's powerfuland exemplaryanalyticmagic thatfollowsthe tale of complicity to this. breakinginto rapportis a testament 88
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

makes the outsiderthe desired anthroanecdote, complicity In the cockfight that,byprecipitating fortuitous complicity pological insider.It is a circumstantial, bond of solidarity, gains Geertzadmissionto the inside of Balinese a momentary and convertsthe Balinese village relations(the means to ethnographicauthority) enclosed of fieldwork-a physically and symbolically intoa proper mise-en-scene out. Verypragmatto livewithin and figure world,a culturefortheethnographer onlyby presenting ically,Geertz realizes thathe can benefitfromthiscomplicity himselfas a naif,a person subjectto eventsand looked out forbyothers(and this of findinghimselfon the side of the village againstthe stateand its vulnerability therethroughthe himself as someone officially agents,ratherthan representing auspices of the state,suggestsboth a shrewdand an ambiguous innocence about was thenbeing done). 10 the historicera in whichanthropologicalfieldwork is rather neat and in this particularfamous tale of fieldwork So complicity that"breaks the ice" and provides the simple; it is an uncomplicatedcomplicity acceptance thatwill allow him to create the anthropologistthe coveted fictional he is no longerinvisible, as before,but of rapportwhereby counter-"mesmerism" Geertz paper on fieldwork, will be indulged as a person. But in a lesser-known fromthe fieldin whichhe story tellsanother more complex,yetcomplementary, internalto the development of relations with inforconsiders how complicity, mantsonce he has gotten"inside,"is deeply entangledwiththe motivatedfiction is necessary "I This paper tellshow a kindof complicity of sustaining rapportitself. of fieldwork, whichitsverymisewithout forsustainingtheworkingrelationships imagien-scene-let alone rapport-would notbe possiblein theanthropologist's nary.This paper, "Thinkingas a Moral Act: EthicalDimensionsof Anthropologiof the possible cal Fieldworkin the New States,"revealsGeertz'sastuteforesight upon theconditionsof anthropologicalknowldevelopmentof a hyperreflexivity in thispaper, he turnsaway edge-a subject that,aftera complicatedtreatment of fieldwork relationsso thatethnographic fromin favorof acceptingthe fictions and the historic anthropologicalprojectto whichhe is committed interpretation the in the line of, for can continue (thatis, projectof U.S. culturalanthropology example, Johann Herder, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, and Ruth Benedict, among manyothers). In "Thinkingas a Moral Act,"Geertzdescribesa complicity of mutualinterest and but between anthropologist clearlyunderstood by each, subtly informant, even constructs, it. Geertz thatmakes rapport possible-indeed thatconstitutes, act of complicity an "anthropologicalirony"of ficcalls thiskeyrapport-defining tionsthateach side accepts: menhopingforradicalimproveOne is placed,in thissortof work, amongnecessitous intheir conditions oflife that do notseemexactly imminent; moreover, one isa type ments ofjust thesort ofimprovements are looking alsoobliged to askthem for, they benefactor whatis almost them forcharity-and giveit.Thisoughtto be a humbling, worse, having often itis simply butmost a disorienting one. Allthefamiliar thuselevating, experience; in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity 89

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

and enlightenment, rationalizationshaving to do with science, progress, philanthropy, disarmed, to grapple with selflesspurityof dedication ringfalse,and one is left,ethically a human relationshipwhichmustbe justifiedover and over again in the most immediate of terms.'2 and his What I am pointingto .. . is an enormous pressure on both the investigator subjects to regard these goals as near when theyare in fact far,assured when theyare wishedfor, and achievedwhenthey are at bestapproximated.This pressuresprings merely of the fieldwork situation.'3 fromthe inherentmoral asymmetry implicitin the encounter of To recognize the moral tension,the ethical ambiguity, and informant, and to stillbe able to dissipateit throughone's actionsand anthropologist is whatencounterdemands of both partiesif it is to be authentic,if it is to one's attitudes, actuallyhappen. And to discoverthatis to discoveralso somethingverycomplicated and and insincerity, genuineness and hypocnot altogetherclear about the natureof sincerity risy, honestyand self-deception.'4 Here again, as in the cockfightanecdote, the broader context of implicationthat of colonialism and neocolonialism-that has so exercised the subsequent critics of ethnography is submerged in Geertz's account, implied but not explicitly noted. The anthropology of the 1950s and 1960s was part of the great mission of development in the new states-in the midst of which Geertz was a very American as well as an anthropological writer,accepting this mission with a certain resignation that did not particularly define a politics of fieldwork. That politics instead emerged in terms of the always slightlyabsurd but very human predicaments of a well-meaning outsider thrust among people with very different life chances. According to the presumptions of the development mission, themselves based on Western notions of liberal decency, the outsider was in some sense the model of a desired future.'5 In Geertz's writings on his fieldwork of the 1960s and 1970s, we see firsta virtual outline and summary of the major moves of later critique-built on the reflexive study of the conditions of anthropologial knowledge not only in terms of its traditional mise-en-scene of fieldwork but also in terms of the broader historic then a hesitation and a pulling back contexts that Geertz tended to elide-and for the sake of sustaining a distanced practice of interpretation. Finally, as Geertz argues in his paper, "Thinking as a Moral Act," I don't know much about what goes on in laboratories;but in anthropologicalfieldwork, detachmentis neithera naturalgiftnor a manufacturedtalent.It is a partialachievement one manages maintained.Whatlittle disinterestedness earned and precariously laboriously to perceivethemin others, to attaincomes not fromfailingto have emotionsor neglecting nor yetfromsealing oneself intoa moral vacuum. It comes froma personal subjectionto a vocational ethic ... to combine two fundamentalorientationstoward reality-the ennot moralblankness,which gaged and theanalytic-into a singleattitude.It is thisattitude, And whateversmall degree of it one manages to we call detachmentor disinterestedness. attaincomes not byadopting an I-am-a-cameraideologyor byenfoldingoneself in layers to do, in such an equivocal situation,the of methodologicalarmor,but simplyby trying workone has come to do.'6 scientific 90
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

essay itselfenacts Geertz'spositionon critical Indeed, the Balinese cockfight in anthropologicalpractice.Once the incidentdescribed in the self-knowledge secured the standard opening reflexivefieldworkanecdote has authoritatively the work of interand idealized conditionof rapport,or "mesmeric"possibility, who is stilla detached observer,famously pretationproceeds by the participant able to read Balinese culture"likea text."Geertz'sshrewdperceptionof the cominvocationof rapport, too-easyprofessional soporific, plicitheartof theotherwise examinationand its implicareflexive followedby his pulling back fromfurther more thanifhe had notbotheredto make tions,probablyhas disturbedhis critics at all. thismove into reflexivity The factthathe did and thathe then pulled back fromlookingtoo closelyat the conditionsof the productionof anthropologicalknowledge-a topic thathe hopes and confidencein the brilliantly introducedat a timeof maximumpositivist so thatare otherwise social sciences-is nota signof theambivalenceor hesitation much a part of Geertz'sexpositorystyleof deliveringinsight.Rather it is a sign to the frame of referencein which anthropologycould be of his commitment that the figureof rapport guaranteed and that Geertz played frame done: the with,could see the critiqueof,but would not go beyond forthe sake of a historic anthropological project that he had done so much to renew in the 1960s and 1970s and thatdefined for him a "vocationalethic."His concern-expressed in appeared in his 1988 the passage withwhich this sectionopens and which first on thatdecade's seminalcritique and Livesas a sidewayscommentary book Works reflexivof anthropologicalknowledge-was over the malaise thatan unfettered his own opening, mightlead to. And has it? ity, following The Collaborative Ideal that a utopia authorship of plural an alternate textual strategy, This suggests possibility but that of enunciators not the status ofindependent accords tocollaborators merely reasons. First, Asaform itmust still beconsidered for two utopian writers. ofauthority as an with torequire, works appear the recent multiple-author experiments few an inthe endassumes who ofthe ethnographer the research interest instigating force, is other Theauthoritative stance voice" tothe of"giving editorial position. executive, a deep challenges authorship not transcended. the ideaof plural very Second, fully text's order with the intention ofa single author... Western ofany identification will Anthropologists there aresigns inthis domain. ofmovement Nonetheless, those pages, with their title andsometimes texts, have toshare their increasingly ifitever adequate, the informants isnolonger term collaborators, for indigenous
was.'7

of thecritiqueof anthropological rhetoric, repreOne strongdirection thatoccurred during the 1980s reconceived the figure sentation,and authority ofJamesClifford of rapportin termsof collaboration.Associatedwiththewriting in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity 91

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

and looselyderived fromMikhailBakhtin'snotionsof polyphonyand dialogism to the monologicauthority of modes of voicingin the novel,the as an alternative vision of a collaborativerelationshipbetween anthropologistand informantas authors of ethnographyin the field has provided a strongreimaginingof the regulativeideal of rapport in the ideology of anthropologicalpractice.As prein a scholarly literary criticism, the collaborastyleof historical sentedbyClifford or figure or fieldwork in a changing tiveideal is less a methodologicalprescription than a rereading,an excavation,of certainoverlookeddimensions mise-en-scene Its power,then,is in its suggestiveness of a more pleasing, of past ethnography. participatory fieldwork-and itis developed in post-1960s practiceof thoroughly need onlyconsciouslyactivatewhat was a way thatsuggeststhatanthropologists thatwas previously conalwaysthere,an obscured dimensionof classicfieldwork of the conventionsof ethnographicwriting. cealed bythe monologicauthority Collaboration ("co-operation"in dialogue) thus replaces rapport ("relationfor fulship" or "connexion,"withitsconnotationof a means or instrumentality one-of the relaof one of the partners-the initiating filling the ends primarily collaborationcreatesa figurefora much more complex tionship).Theoretically, but in Clifford'swriting, which looks back at the understandingof fieldwork, this reethnographictraditionthrough its classics and classics-in-the-making, placement figureis also very much forged in the traditionalmise-en-sceneof thattraditional setting, givingit a needed new fieldwork-and in factreinforces and theobjectof studyare stillessentially face,so to speak. The scene of fieldwork a culturesituatedin place and to be learned coterminous,togetherestablishing The collaborativeideal it in sustainedinteraction. about by one's presence inside entailsthe notionsthatknowledgecreationin fieldwork alwaysinvolvesnegotiating a boundarybetweenculturesand thatthe resultis never reducible to a form of knowledgethatcan be packaged in the monologicvoice of the ethnographer alone. But still,the polyphonyimplied in the idea of collaborationpreservesthe of a bounded culture,howevernonreductive,as the idea of the representation thesame habitsof workthatrapportvalorized.The objectof studyand reinforces other form independent voices in collaborationstillemerge withina distinctively of life. Perhaps because of the way this ideal was developed in the critique of thetradition of ethnography-it inheranthropology-by excavatingfromwithin thathad preceded it. of the mise-en-scene ited the limits Of course, neithercollaborationnor theidea of dialogismon whichitis based or artisliterary, necessarily impliestheharmonyof "unitedlabour" in a scientific, tic endeavor, as the OED definition suggests,and Clifforddoes not develop the but idea with this connotation.The positiveOED sense remains a potentiality, coerbased on misrecognitions, more oftenthan not,collaborationis conflicted, thatGeertz cataloged so well cions, and preciselythe sortof ironies/complicities not being on fieldwork. Clifford differs fromGeertzonlyin finally in his writing

92

REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

vocationof anthropology;thus,he can indulge a personallytied to the scientific relation. Inthe commonplace ideal of the fieldwork that transforms reflexivity as partnersone's subjectsof studyand to generdeed, to recognizeand legitimate of ate only polyphonic textswould indeed make somethingradicallydifferent of study. traditional frame the wouldn't change significantly ethnography;but it space and suggestsnew conventions Collaboration does evoke the reflexive ambiguities,and nuances of for the normalized discussion of the complexities, articuYet Clifford's centralto fieldwork. relationship the anthropologist-subject lation of the ambiguitiesof this relationshipstillremains rathermute as to the and make thisrelationship thatsurround,motivate, different senses of complicity thebroader colonialcontextas itoperates in collaboration, possible. In particular, developed.'8 discussion,is not strongly while a part of Clifford's thatI wantto develop below, In relationto the particularsense of complicity which corresponds to a break with the traditionalmise-en-sceneof fieldwork, discussionof collaborationcan even be seen as evasive.It goes somewhat Clifford's how thebroader context of theanthropologifurther thanGeertz'sin recognizing in fieldwork, but itrecognizesthiscontextonlyin termsof cal projectis registered to colonialism.What is relationship the long-standing question of anthropology's missingin the evocation of the ideal of collaborationis the much more complioperating sense of the broader contextof anthropology cated and contemporary and multiin a so-called postmodernworldof discontinuousculturalformations is certainly shaped in partbya history ple sitesof culturalproduction.This context of colonialism,but it cannot be fullyrepresentedby that venerable bete noire, whichhas long servedas thebroader contextin commonplace professionalideolof fieldwork.'9 mise-en-scene cradlingthe traditional ogy,ambivalently has not been then,complicity In the imaginingof collaborationas fieldwork, in in either its ethical sense or potential its cognitive a veryimportant component, space thefieldwork scene itself. But byfully opening a reflexive forreconfiguring explorationsof the regulativeidea of thatwentbeyond Geertz'sown self-limited rapport,the figureof collaborationcreated the necessaryground forgoing further. The explicit dimension of complicityremained to be powerfullyarticulated-and again, withregard to colonialismas the broader context-as part of the 1980s critiqueof anthropology byRenato Rosaldo, perhaps the spoiler of all of fieldwork's otherfictions. Imperialist Nostalgia and Complicity arethe condition ofethnographic Processes enabling change often ofdrastic field and officer, andherein resides the constabulary, complicity ofmissionary, research, Just asJones received visits American during constabulary from ethnographer. officers for airplane his Michelle Rosaldo andI often used the missionary research, field

The Uses of Complicity in AnthropologicalFieldwork

93

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

policeand wedid notevangelize, Jones did not region. in the Ilongot transportation in the as relatively minor players, and weparticipated, witness, butweall bore oureyes.20 taking place before transformation

foreseenbyGeertz, Movingin anotherdirectionfromthe possibilities to itslimitand mise-en-scene Renato Rosaldo takesthe critiqueof the traditional makes explicitthe broader contextof anthropologyin the scene of fieldfinally has its greatestpower as a figure.Ropotentially work.This is where complicity the specific compass of interpretive saldo's workhas developed verymuch within anthropologythatGeertz establishedin the 1960s and 1970s. As such, his essay an appropriateexpressionof the evolutionof "ImperialistNostalgia" constitutes now in itsmost politicizedform.Among the crion fieldwork, Geertz'sthinking tiques of the 1980s, thisessay is the mostrecognizablesuccessor to Geertz'sown
writing.

insightof thisessay-indeed, anotherexamplar of anthropoThe trenchant in fieldwork-is that the key ideological logial irony,as Geertz called complicity to distance themselvesfrom other sentimentthat has allowed anthropologists foreignagents in the field is preciselythe sentimentthat both denies and conprocess. As Rosaldo structstheir own agency in that verysame transformative says,"My concern resides witha particularkind of nostalgia,oftenfound under have transwherepeople mournthepassingofwhattheythemselves imperialism, formed.... When the so-called civilizingprocess destabilizesformsof life, the of other cultures as if theywere agents of change experience transformations rhetoric Here, Rosaldo captures and indictsthe characteristic personal losses."'2' at the same time pinpointingthe primary of ethics that pervades ethnography, or the people, but in fieldwork-not with the informant relation of complicity fromwhich Geertz complicity withthe agents of change. This is the politicizing view of collaborationwas not blunt backed off,and about which the alternative enough. of the figureof rapportis achieved byplacing at the limits This politicization in Geertz. Rather than a primaryemphasis on what was the play of complicity simplybeing the ironic means to a rapport that cements the workingbond bebecomes the definingelement of and informant, complicity tween fieldworker the relationshipbetween the anthropologistand the broader colonial context. In so doing, the problem of the broader outside context-again, thoughtof as relation, colonialism-is finallybroughtsquarely to the inside of the fieldwork or indirectly. somethingthatthe collaborativeideal achieved onlyintermittently nostalgia"broughtus in So where has Rosaldo's argumentabout "imperialist of complicity withthe powerfulregulativeideal our tracingof the entanglements about complicity ratherthanrapport of rapport?To thevergeof talking primarily the primaryfieldwork as constructing relation,and as such, to the brinkof reof fieldwork to betteraccommodate held mise-en-scene conceivingthestubbornly
94
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

kind of ethnographicproject thatis now emergingand being profesdifferent sionallynormalizedin anthropology. with be complicit rapportrequiresthattheanthropologist In Geertz'swriting, the"insideness" or group ofsubjects.Whilenoteffacing theinsideof a community Rosaldo understandseveryapparent inmise-en-scene, essentialto the fieldwork makesas primarily withthebroader external complicit side move the fieldworker context of colonialism. But, like Geertz's earlier politicallymuted critique of in anand Clifford's fieldwork contemporaneouscritiqueof monologicauthority misewithin and its rapport thropologicalpractice,Rosaldo's essay is stilllocated ofthesortofcomplicity As such,therecognition en-scene,thoughat itsouterlimit. with the very arrival of the that brings the outside into the scene of fieldwork anthropologist-who can no longer protectherselfwiththe nostalgia that prefromotheragentsof change-remains forRosaldo a moral servesher difference response fromwithinthe traditional lesson, one forwhich there is littlefurther ideology of rapport. For Rosaldo, anthropologyof the old sort eitheris over,is or continuesto be practicedas a tragicoccupaparalyzed by moralizinginsight, in of the pitfallsof its powerfulrhetoricsof selfthe full awareness done tion, justification. WithRosaldo, then,we come to an impasse. The kindof sustainedreflexivity forhimself thatGeertz feared,turnedawayfrom,and has more latelyconfirmed as leading to malaise has now been takento itslimitwithinthe traditionalproject of complicity thathas alwaysshadowed of anthropology, revealingtheimplication the positivefigureof rapport.But is thisreallythe end? Complicityand the MultisitedSpaces of ContemporaryEthnography exists a very but one-sided andthus untrustworthy ideathat inorder to There strong, understand a foreign onemust enter into forgetting one's own, and culture, it, better view the possibility of foreign the world through the eyes ofthis culture....ofcourse, the world its isa necessary ofunderstanding it; part ofthe process through eyes seeing but were the itwould beduplication andwould not entail merely only aspect ifthis itself, its own placeand Creative understanding does not renounce enriching. anything its own andit In order itisimmensely nothing. tounderstand, culture; forgets time, the who understands the object ofhisorher tobelocated outside for person important inspace, creative inculture. In the realm ofculture, understanding-in time, inunderstanding. outsidedness isa most Weraise a new questions for powerfulfactor itdidnot ones that raise weseek answers toourown for itself; culture, foreign init;andthe culture tousby revealing tousits new aspects responds foreign questions andnew semantic depths.22 The transformation of complicity thatI wantto trace,fromitsplace in the shadows of the more positiveand less ethically ambiguous notion of rapport The Uses of Complicity in AnthropologicalFieldwork 95

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

is occasioned by figurein theideologyof fieldwork, to itsemergenceas a primary These changand of itsobjectsof study. itself thechangingconditionsof fieldwork of fieldtraditional the mise-en-scene stimulating ing conditionsare effectively workto be turnedinside out withinthe professionalideology,and it is the figure thatfocusesthischange. of complicity in culturalformations-theirmultipleand heterogeneoussites Discontinuity of production-has begun to forcechanges in the assumptionsand notionsthat of Anthropologists, of fieldwork. mise-en-scene have constructedthe traditional and locallywithparticularsubjects-the subcourse,continueto workintensively stance of ethnographicanalysisrequires this-but theyno longer do so withthe accessiblewithina particularsite,or sense thatthe culturalobjectof studyis fully and intimately anywhereis integrally withoutthe sense that a site of fieldwork elsewhere. The intellectualenvironmentsurtied to sites of possible fieldwork ethnographicstudymakes it seem incompleteand even roundingcontemporary itsown researchdesign a fullmapping of a ifit does not encompass within trivial thecontoursof whichcannotbe presumed but are themselves culturalformation, a key discoveryof ethnographicinquiry.The sense of the object of studybeing "here and there" has begun to wreak productivehavoc on the "being there" of classicethnographicauthority.23 of rapportin thecritiwas implicatedin the achievement However complicity and Rosaldo, all three sustainthe sense thatthe cal versionsof Geertz,Clifford, existsinsideanotherformof life-entailand literaldomain offieldwork symbolic ing crossinga boundary into it and exploringa culturallogic of enclosed differthe translation withdifficulty process is). ence (howeverfraught The looks quite different. complicity Once released fromthismise-en-scene, remains,but now one is aftera distinctly focus on a particularsite of fieldwork sortof knowledge,one forwhichmetaphorsof insidenessor the crossdifferent ing of culturalbondaries are no longer appropriate. In any particularlocation certainpractices,anxieties,and ambivalences are of nonlocal agencies and functioning responsesto theintimate presentas specific common-senseunderstandings.24 causes-and forwhichthereare no convincing The basic conditionthatdefinesthe altered mise-en-scenefor which complicity rather than rapport is a more appropriate figureis an awareness of existential and subject;thisderivesfromhaving doubleness on thepartofboth anthropologist are under way thatare tied to where major transformations a sense of being here or authoribut not havinga certainty elsewhere, thingshappening simultaneously so many there are are. of what connections those Indeed, tativerepresentation plausible explanationsforthe changes, no singleone of whichinspiresmore authan another,thatthe individualsubjectis leftto account forthe connecthority structure-and to read intohis or her own narrative tions-the behind-the-scenes of greatand littleeventshappening elsewhere. the locallyfeltagencyand effects Social actors are confrontedwiththe same kind of impasses that academics 96
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

suggests the particular experience these days, and this affinity uncomfortably these of ethnography, But for the of subjects the complicity. of figure salience at life to require for all, proceed impasses are pragmaticproblemsthat, everyday responses ranging fromevasions and displacementsto halfheartedinvestments visions of the way the and idiosyncratic in old theories or exotic constructions mostanthroof fieldwork, mise-en-scene worldworks.In termsof the traditional and outside the both inside as being themselves understood pologistshave always observers.That is, theyhave never nasitesin which theyhave been participant ivelythoughtthat theycould simply"go native"and in factare criticalof those among them who are so naive. Rather,theyunderstand well that they always nativesat best. Still,theyhave always operated on the remain marginal,fictive faith,necessaryforthe kind of knowledgethattheyproduce, thattheycould be of translation, theskills more insidersthanoutsidersifonlybymastering relatively and learned culturalcompetencies-in short,thattheycould achieve sensitivity, rapport. boundary positionwhile it begins fromthe same inside-outside In contrast, does not posit the same faithin being in the figureof complicity ing, investment able to probe the "inside" of a culture (nor does it presuppose that the subject local knowlherselfis even on the "inside"of a culture,giventhatcontemporary forcestherecognition edge is neveronlyabout beinglocal). The idea of complicity from markersof "outsideness."Never stirring of ethnographersas ever-present the boundary,theirpresence makes possiblecertainkindsof access thatthe idea of rapport and the faithin being able to get inside (by fiction'a la Geertz, by 'a la Rosaldo) does not. It or byself-deception utopian collaboration'a la Clifford, situationin whichthe outsidenessis never is onlyin an anthropologist-informant between ethnographerand subject elided and is indeed the basis of an affinity to reflect thechanging can shift ideologyof fieldwork thatthereigningtraditional conditionsof research. in thischanged mise-en-scene wantfromsubjectsis not What ethnographers of theformsof anxietythatare generso much local knowledgeas an articulation ated by the awareness of being affectedby what is elsewhere withoutknowing what the particularconnectionsto that elsewheremightbe. The ethnographer It is not thatthiseffect on the scene in thissense makes thatelsewherepresent.25 but itis alwaysreferenced is currently unrecognizedin anthropology, of fieldwork in termsof an ethical discourse,and this frame does not get at what the more seeks to document. generativesense of the idea of complicity at a formof local knowledge that is of tries to get This version complicity thatis not accessiblebyworkingout internalcultural about the kindof difference logics. It is about differencethat arises fromthe anxietiesof knowingthat one is somehow tied into what is happening elsewhere,but, as noted, withoutthose articulated throughavailableinternalcultural connectionsbeingclear or precisely loin discoursesthatare thoroughly models. In effect, subjectsare participating in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity 97

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

calized but thatare not theirown. Douglas Holmes, whose research is discussed discourse"to describethisphenomenon,in whichfraglater,uses the terin"illicit mentsof local discourseshave theiroriginselsewherewithoutthe relationshipto wonder,and insecucreatesanxiety, thatelsewherebeing clear. This uncertainty both in the ethnographerand in her subjects. registers, rity, in different This recognitionof a common predicamentis the primarymotivationfor thinkingabout the changed conception of fieldworkrelationshipsin terms of It would be possible to understand our emphasis on the figure of complicity. kind of rapport,but it would be a as the achievementof a different complicity with the of thatfigurein the traditional construction to it precise mistake identify in the figureof complicity thisconrestson highlighting mode. The investment of local discourses,marked and set offby the externaldetermination temporary fieldworker's presence but free of the figuresof rapport and collaborationthat between an Free of these,complicity characterizedfieldwork. have traditionally ethnographerwhose outsidenessis alwaysprominentand a subjectwho is sensiotherdimensionsthatthedialogue of traditiveto theoutside helps to materialize tional fieldwork, conceived as takingplace inside rapport,cannot get at as well. Only thuswe do we escape thetendencyto see change as a disruptionof whatwas there before-a disruptionof a world in which the anthropologistmighthave of which he or she can stillrely and on the "prior-ness" been more comfortable of fieldwork, even mise-en-scene in exercisingthe assumptionsof the traditional changes. In such cases, the formative in a siteundergoingmassiveand long-term culturesin change and boundaries between expressionsof anxietythatconstruct cultures are likelyto be eithermissed or rationalizedin termsof prior cultural logics. Only when an outsider begins to relate to a subject also concerned with lifecan these expressionsbe given focal importancein a outsidenessin everyday pushes the entireresearch program localized fieldwork that,in turn,inevitably into the of thesingleethnographic challengesand promisesof a multisited project to thatencourages the ethnographerliterally space and trajectory-a trajectory move to other sites that are powerfully registeredin the local knowledge of an as an aid in This is what the notion of complicity locus of fieldwork. originating offers. of fieldwork the rethinking potentially and collaboracomplicity, compared to rapport Accordingto itsOED definitions, carriesa heavierload of ethicalmeaningand implication.However,thisethition, is evoked as a criticalprobe of the when complicity cal sense is very different in the of traditionalfigureof rapport writing Geertz, Clifford,and Rosaldoamong others-than when itbecomes thecentralfigureused to explore the misein new circumstances. The usual ethicalquestioningof the en-scene of fieldwork fieldwork relationshiprelies heavilyon exploring the dynamicsof the assumed unequal power relations between ethnographer and subject, always weighted who is implicatedin Westerncolonialon the side of theethnographer, structurally definedthe broader contextof ism (which,as I noted earlier,has stereotypically 98
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

has When the politicizednature of fieldwork classic anthropologicalfieldwork). been highlightedin the past, it has been developed by calling anthropologyto account foritscolonial, and now postcolonial,complicities.26 has of the ethicalissues involvedin fieldwork This predictableconstruction become fartoo limiteda means of addressingcurrentchangingviewsof the miseresearch.Withtheoretiof fieldwork in thebroader contextof multisited en-sc&ne processesnow under prominent and framesof world-systems cal metanarratives a broader contextual framingfor any location of debate and reformulation, The shifting boundaries of the ethnois less available to ethnographers. fieldwork into this broader graphic project, as described above, are movingspeculatively of retrajectory throughthe multisited treatingit ethnographically frameitself, of authority of the noted and loss of inadequacy This is because partly search. of metanarratives-likecolonialism(or postcoboth older and new formulations lonialism), Marxist political economy,and globalization(an as-yetpoorly theobecause of conceptin wide currency)-and partly rized,but apparentlynecessary, fieldwork of from and offered kind of the material by nature sought thechanging subjectswho thinkin termsof theirconnectionsbeyond the local. This need to withthe broader contextof focused researchwithoutthe aid deal more directly of adequate framescreated by other kinds of scholarshipleads to a much less of colonialism,forexamdeterminedand available contextthan does the history ple, in considering the politicsand ethical implicationsof contemporaryfieldevoked in past critiquesof fieldwork to work. Likewise,as the figurefrequently specififigureof rapport,complicity probe the ethicalproblemsof a too-innocent a different and more complex sense of the substance callyplaysto and constructs relationship. of the ethnographer-subject forassessingthe ethicalimplicationof comThe changingcontextualization of contemporary is fieldwork relationships as the normal characterization plicity in the shifting as the fieldworker power valences of these relationships, reflected moves from site to site,and the oftenethicallyambiguous management by the situaof theaccumulationofthesedevelopingrelationships in specific fieldworker tions. Of course, ethnographershave oftenbeen faced withsuch ethical issues in whichtheyhave worked,but in multisited withinthe villagesand communities of the ethnographer'sand his research,the broader contextis in a sense entirely own rather than attributable to more abstractand already informants' making, morallyloaded forcessuch as capitalismand colonialism.So, withinthe boundand equivaaries of a singleproject,the ethnographermaybe dealing intimately class circumstances-withelites and suballentlywithsubjectsof verydifferent to one another or have terns,forinstance-who maynot even be knowndirectly thattheyhave on each other'slives. a sense of the oftenindirecteffects The ethical issues in multisitedresearch are raised by the ethnographer's kinds of affiliations withina configuration of sites movementamong different evolving in a particular research project. The inequality of power relations, in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity 99

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

can no longerbe presumed in thisworld weightedin favorof the anthropologist, The fieldworker oftendeals withsubjectswho share ethnography. of multisited and fears,in which case unspoken power his own broadly middle-classidentity become farmore ambiguous than theywould have been issues in the relationship he maydeal withpersons in much in past anthropologicalresearch;alternatively, power and class positionsthan his own,in whichcase both the termsand stronger by them. Here, limitsof the ethnographicengagementare managed principally where the ethnographeroccupies a marked subordinate relationshipto inforand of tradinginformamants,the issues of use and being used, of ingratiation, of normal ethical concern, where become matters tion about others elsewhere theywere largelyunconsidered in previousdiscussions. byvirtueof thesechanging As I have remarkedelsewheretheanthropologist, some of negotiating of research,is alwayson theverge of activism, circumstances to according of ethnographer, role the distanced beyond of involvement kind To whatextent thatmayor maynot predate the project.27 personal commitments be indulged withinthe activity of ethnograand on whattermscan such activism phy,and whatare the consequences of avoidingitor denyingitaltogetherforthe that Geertz argued for in the continued achievementof the "disinterestedness" traditionalmise-en-sceneof research? These are the questions that define the much more complicated ethical compass of contemporaryfieldworkfor which the past understandingof ethnography(in the throes of more abstractworld forces)can no longer serveas an adequate frameof assessment.28 historical What complicitystands for as a central figure of fieldworkwithin this those relationas characterizing contextof research,and particularly multisited to generate the kind of knowledgeengaged withthe ships thatwork effectively markingequivalence, between fieldoutside that I evoked earlier,is an affinity, and anxiety arisesfromtheirmutualcuriosity This affinity workerand informant. abstract so much the contextualizing about theirrelationshipto a "third"-not world systembut the specificsites elsewhere that affecttheir interactionsand make themcomplicit(in relationto the influenceof that"third")in creatingthe effective. This special sense of comrelationship bond thatmakes theirfieldwork described as anthroof fictions that Geertz does not entailthe sort evading plicity who and and informant in whichanthropologist pretendto forget pological irony, of are in theworldin order to createthe special relationship wheretheyotherwise of fieldworkbetween fieldworkrapport. Nor is this the covered-up complicity the anthropologistand imperialism,as is described in Rosaldo's essay. Rather, and betweenanthropologist here restsin theacknowledgedfascination complicity informantregarding the outside "world" that the anthropologistis specifically of her multisited agenda. This is throughthe travelsand trajectory materializing in an evil of the sense that of "partnership the OED sense complicity goes beyond throughthe comaction"to the sense of being "complex or involved,"primarily to a third. plex relationships 100
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

thatcreates and informant The shared imaginationbetweenanthropologist a space beyond the immediateconfinesof the local is also whatprojectsthe tradioutward toward other sides. The mise-en-sceneof fieldwork tional site-specific glides ofcomplicity acknowledgedethicalimplication loaded and morecommonly turnforthe design and purviewof fieldwork, here into itscognitiveimplication inside out. It willbe recalled thatfor Rosaldo, ing the traditionalmise-en-scene as complicity was a stoppingpoint forethnography, the recognitionof fieldwork in itsmostself-justifying revealinghow anthropology insight a possiblyparalyzing withcolonialin thebroader contextof an "evilpartnership" rhetoricparticipates as a definingelement of multisited research is both complicity ism. In contrast, more generativeand more ambiguous morally;it demands a mapping onto and of the ethnographicprojectintoa broader contextthatis neitherso morally entry determinedas it appeared in previouscritiquesof rapport. nor so cognitively of thedevelopingresearch In conclusion,I wantto offer a briefconsideration project of Douglas Holmes, in discussionwithwhom I worked out a number of the ideas presented in thispaper concerningthe value of recastingthe mise-enof complicity. Holmes's projecttracesand in termsof thefigure scene of fieldwork European right,frequently examines in situ the discoursesof the contemporary relationto his subjects.It is thusa dramaticexample of placing him in disturbing in itsfull in multisited space, wherethe riskof complicity the politicsof fieldwork not is alive at severallevels.Certainly moral sense of "evilpartnership" negatively many of the several other arenas of research in which multisitedagendas are Here thereis thechallengeof the fieldworker treating emergingare as charged.29 otherhe would certainly witha modicumof sympathy subjectswhom,as a citizen, long considered a partialinocwise oppose and revile.The doctrineof relativism, ulation of the anthropologistagainst ethicallyquestionable positions in far-off and Nazis-the compliciamong fascists places, does notworkas wellin fieldwork betweenethnographer strongaffinities tiesof fieldwork establishing relationships and subject in relationto a shared world or arena of discourse willnot allow for in the field.For Holmes, this problem is captured in his a distancingrelativism the circulation of illicit discoursein conattemptto understandethnographically Europe. temporary

Illicit Discourse Holmes's project examines how culturalstrugglesare shaping Euroera. In explaining the background of his repean politicsin the post-cold-war back to the midthat stretches search, he writes:"The project has a prehistory 1980s and the Friuliregion of northeastItaly-the terrainof Carlo Ginzburg's Elsepersecutions."30 studiesof sixteenth-century agrariancultsand inquisitorial where he writes,"While pursuing an ethnographicportrayalof this domain, I The Uses of Complicity in AnthropologicalFieldwork 101

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

encountered for the firsttime what appeared to be a rough antipoliticsthat seemed to subverttheformation of an independentpoliticaloutlook and identity. In subsequent yearsthese marginalsensibilities and aspirationsinsinuatedthemselvesintothe heartof European politicaldiscourse."31More recently, Holmes has made fieldwork sitesof the European Parliament in Strasbourgand the offices of BritishNational Party in the East End of London. the openlyracistand neofascist From his workin Strasbourg, he has publisheda 1991 interview withBruno Gollnisch, professorof Japanese law and literatureat the University of Lyons,who was elected to the European Parliamentas a memberof the Technical Group of the European Right,the chairmanof whichis Jean-MarieLe Pen; and fromhis London fieldwork he has produced an interview withRichard Edmonds, who is the national organizerof the BritishNational Party.32 Holmes's project is to piece togetherthe manifestations, resemblances,and appeals of certainrelateddiscoursesthathave made themselves presentin settings like Friuli,Strasbourg,and East London, among others.For the most part,he is not guided by a map of transnational and transcultural "flows" or "scapes"-the cartographicor diagrammaticimageryis inapt for the discontinuousspaces in whichhe works.The lines of relationship betweenthe discoursesin these different sites are not at all charted, and this uncertainty or even mystery as to the discourses is in part what makes them genealogies in the spread of right-wing formidableto both analystsand those who wish to oppose them. What Holmes bringsto the enterpriseis an ethnographicear for the perversionsof discourse in different settingsthat mark and define the changing social characterof the right.What is challengingabout these discourses for the ethnographeris that theyare not alien or marked offfromrespectableranges of opinion but in fact have deep connectionswiththem. They deserve to be listened to closelybefore of the politically extreme or being ethicallyconbeing exoticized as a figment This calculated and imposed naivete, necessary for demned too precipitously. to be conducted at all, is potentially the source of greateststrength and fieldwork of ethnographic special insight analysis, leading to boththe"complexor involved" as well as exposure to complicity's other sense, of "being an sense of complicity an in evil action." accomplice,partnership The workingconceptualframeforHolmes's multisited fieldwork-whatconceptually defines the affinities among sites whose connections are not otherwise preestablished-lies in his notion of "illicitdiscourse,"which he describes as follows: theboundaries, and idiomsof political An illicit discourse aimsat reestablishing terms, is deconstructive. Itsauthority is often The resulting struggle. political practice parasitic, thecorruption, and lostrelevance ofthe from drawing strength ineptitude, obsolescence, Its andmap contraandagendas. the points established political dogmas practitioners negotiate of thedetritus of decaying andfatigue diction ofparticular positions. They scavenge politics,

102

REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

and invoke displacedhistories By doingso they probing areas of deceitand deception. into theunvoiced and unspeakable to introduce moralities. Theystrive revealdeformed thosewhoarthese"illicitudes," defining resist political forces publicdebate.Established of essentialized or as someform pariah(italics bigots themas racists, terrorists, ticulate mine).33 But abound in Holmes'sfieldwork. Different sensesofthenotionofcomplicity the particularsense thatis relevantto myargumenthere, and to othermultisited research projects,concerns not the heightenedethicalquestion of dealing with the odious fromthe necessarilyopen and cordial demeanor of the fieldworker beaffinity wantingaccess, but the more subtle issue of the cognitivelintellectual locations of illicit discoursein different tweentheethnographerand the purveyor that I have italicizedin the quotation in the previous (as keyed by the statement values and commitments, the ethnograparagraph). Despite theirverydifferent broadlyengaged in a pursuit pher and his subjectsin thisprojectare nevertheless can recognize.This thatthey of knowledgewithresemblancesin formand context in of complicity and sense troubling the most provocative potentially constitutes the fieldwork relationship. was the agile appropriation struckHolmes in his fieldwork What particularly of familiardiscourse. by people marked as objectionableof all sortsof registers was notcomplicit nor fooled his informants-he by He was being neitherbeguiled sense. Rather,he was simplysurprisedby withthemin thisverydirectnormative with what was available in theirdiscourse-its range of overlap and continuities familiarand otherwiseunobjectionablepositions.When a researcheris dealing with extremeson either end of the political spectrum,the anthropologicalasthe exotic,and the enclosed sumptionis oftenthatone is dealing withthecuitlike, mightbe attractedto subjectsin new ter(and, to some degree, anthropologists rains where theycan analogicallyreproduce theirtraditionalgaze). Extremists theirown cosmologiesand selfare supposed to be likeexoticothers,livingwithin fieldwork complicity withthem enclosed senses of thereal. In such a construction, to is highlyartificial and not as troubling-it becomes, again, simplycomplicity facilitate professionalrapport. But when Holmes actuallydeals withas sophisticated and subtlea speaker as Gollnischor as cunninga one as Edmonds, what is disruptedin the classicanthropologicalviewis the notionthatthese speakers are notthe fieldworker's. "other"-that theyhave an "inside"thatis distinctly While Holmes does not share his subjects'beliefs-nor does he fear being seduced in this way-he is complicitin many respectswiththeirdiscourse and ofwhatshapes politicalculturesin contemporary Europe. They critical imaginary for in share a taste deconstructive logics and for, short,understandingchanges they discourse. However differently in termsof the infectious dynamicsof illicit view itsoperation,theyshare the same speculativewonder about it. normatively discourse,Holmes findshimself By the fluid,appropriativecapacityof right-wing

The Uses of Complicity in AnthropologicalFieldwork

103

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

who are accomplished ideologues/theobeing brought closer to his informants, are as responsible for this connection (if not His informants rists/storytellers. would otherwisebe thoughtof as more so) as is Holmes-who, as fieldworker, is discourse as experienced in fieldwork the framesetter-and in thisway,illicit infectious. particularly ethicalquestions here, but, in so doing, it not onlyraises difficult Complicity also providesan opening to more generalquestionsposed in "honest"intellectual in the mise-en-scene difference What marksdistinctive withfascists. partnership of multisitedfieldworkmore generallyis this unexpected affinity/complicityand the (in Holmes's case) more cognitivethan ethical-between the fieldworker looks Because theyare not the usual subjects,the anthropologist vile informant. for other connectionsthat triangulatehim and them, and this is what pushes the ethnographyelsewhere-in search of other connections,other sites. Finally, in his fieldwork in any obvirelationships Holmes does not fear moral complicity in danger of becoming an accomplice in the ous way; rather,he is constantly of reference, anadiscoursebecause of thecommonalities mutualmakingof illicit lytic imaginary,and curiositythat fieldworkerand subjects so productively purposes.34 share-each fortheirverydifferent

A Concluding Note in the 1980s upon thehistorical project reflection Aftera strongcritical of culturalanthropologyas a discipline,articulatedthroughan assessmentof its of the ideology of we are now in the midstof a rethinking rhetoricaltraditions, Much is at stakein this,since it touches upon method of fieldwork. itsdistinctive that continues to define the discipline'scollectiveself-identity the core activity definingexperience. The figureof rapport has through everyanthropologist's to standfortheactual complexialwaysbeen acknowledgedas being too simplistic but it has had-and continues to have-great influenceas a ties of fieldwork, regulativeideal in professionalculture. As were many other issues concerning anthropology'scontemporarypractice,the more troublingfigureof complicity shadowing thatof rapportwas explored in CliffordGeertz'slandmark essays of withhis signatureturn-of-phrase styleof deep inthe 1960s and 1970s, written furthered the ansightcombinedwithconsiderableambivalence.He significantly manwithrenewedintellectual powerwhilepragmatically thropologicaltradition aging the doubt that comes withany exertionof an acute criticalcapacity.The the implicationof this shadow exercise undertaken in this paper, of amplifying of anthropologicalfieldwork forthe changingcircumstances figureof complicity withoutproposing it as a new regulativeideal, is offeredin the continuingspirit and problemsat of Geertz'sown seminalbalancing of ethnography's possibilities of anthropology. momentin the history another,verydifferent 104
REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Notes
1971 compact ed., s.v. "rapport,""collaboration,""collaboEnglishDictionary, 1. Oxford "complice." rate,""complicity," 2. The mostcommon source of thisessay("Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight") (New York, 1973), 412-53, but it was ofCultures is CliffordGeertz, TheInterpretation first published in Daedalus 101 (Winter1972): 1-37, and as an undergraduate at Yale, I first heard Geertz delivera versonof it at a colloquium in the mid-1960s. This essay all of the major stylesand was remarkable for its elegant condensation of virtually withinthe contextof ethnographysuch an moves that were to make interpretation research programthroughoutthe 1970s and 1980s, not only in anthropolattractive trend in literary ogy but also especially in social historyand in the new historicist among other methods and disciplines.Segments of "Deep Play" could be criticism, tasks of cultural analysis as these were easily appropriated as models for different becoming prominentin a varietyof fields. For example, the opening anecdote on into thatgetsthe writer story whichI focus served as a model of the kind of fieldwork the material.The rhetoricaltechniqueof opening withsuch a storywas to become a of both writingand analysis in major (and now perhaps, dully repetitive)strategy and literary scholarship. ethnographic,historical, 3. Geertz,"Deep Play,"412. 4. Ibid., 416. accounts as well as the criticalliteratureon field5. By now,the literatureof fieldwork in line withthe argument are bothvastand diverse.For recentassessments workitself in Place: Explorations Power, here, see Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson,eds., Culture, Critical Anthropology (Durham, N.C., 1997); Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, eds., inAnthropology TheConcept 1997); George E. Marcus,ed., Critical (Berkeley, ofFieldwork New Agendas(Santa Fe, Constituencies, Now: Unexpected Shifting Contexts, Anthropology in/of theWorldSystem:The Emergence 1997); and George E. Marcus,"Ethnography AnnualReviewofAnthropology 24 (1995): 95-117. of Multi-SitedEthnography," forthesecritiquesincludeJamesClifford and George E. Marcus, 6. Standard references and Politics ThePoetics Culture: ofEthnography (Berkeley,1986); George E. eds., Writing An Experimental as Cultural Moment Marcus and Michael Fischer, Critique: Anthropology (CamofCulture in the HumanSciences ThePredicament (Chicago, 1986); JamesClifford, and Truth:The Remaking ofSocial bridge, Mass., 1988); and Renato Rosaldo, Culture Analysis (Boston, 1989). and Truth, 7. Renato Rosaldo, "ImperialistNostalgia,"in Culture 68-87. atLarge: Cultural Dimensions ofGlobaliza8. See, forexample, Arjun Appadurai, Modernity tion(Minneapolis, 1996), and Susan Harding and Fred Myers,eds., Further Inflections: themeissue of Cultural Toward Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994). Future, Ethnographies ofthe and Lives: TheAnthropologist 9. CliffordGeertz,Works as Author (Stanford,1988), 97. of Geertzto broader complicities of presence 10. We can compare the relativeinattention of thescholarly of thedevelopmentera of the 1950s and 1960s) zeitgeist (characteristic on his own circumstantial to Renato Rosaldo's explicitreflection with the complicity of a post-i1970s historic forcesof colonialism(characteristic zeitgeist in whichtales like incidentcan no longer be told innocently). thatof the cockfight 11. CliffordGeertz, "Thinking as a Moral Act: Ethical Dimensions of Anthropological Antioch Fieldworkin the New States," Review28, no. 2 (1968): 139-58. Again, compare fictions in thisessayof thedevelopmentera, in whichscholarly theironiesof fieldwork

The Uses of Complicity in AnthropologicalFieldwork

105

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

12. 13. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19.

20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25.

distance not only remains possible but is considered the most desirable outcome, to "Power reassessmentof Marcel Griaule in the field:James Clifford, James Clifford's Essays Observed: in Observers and Dialogue in Ethnography:Marcel Griaule'sInitiation," ed. George Stocking(Madison, 1983), 121-56, one of the Fieldwork, on Ethnographic in colonial context.The intimately key works that placed anthropologicalfieldwork whichputs the desirabilwayto knowledgeforGriaule is througha certainhumbling, ityof the returnto the anthropological"vocation"in doubt. Geertz,"Thinkingas a Moral Act," 150-5 1. 14. Ibid., 154-55. Ibid., 151. theFact (Cambridge, Mass., After published,memoirlike In CliffordGeertz'srecently knowledgeof the murderous turbulencethatwas to withthe hindsight 1995), written thereis thissame matter-ofhisyearsof fieldwork, sweep throughIndonesia following of momentsof anthropological dramas and contexts factnotingof thebroader historic are insights in whichstriking These are conveyedwitha wearyresignation, fieldwork. encompassed in turnsof phrase fullof the kind of detachmentand wrynessthathas angered his youngercritics. Geertz,"Thinkingas a Moral Act,"156. 51. ofCulture, Predicament "On EthnographicAuthority," James Clifford, essay on Marcel Griaule is probablyhis most explicitand strongest Again, Clifford's neither relations.Interestingly, piece on thecolonial contextand shapingof fieldwork Cliffordnor the OED pointsto the verycommon and darkerconnotationof the term with thatarose withitsspecial use during WorldWar I I (as in collaborating collaboration Nazis in occupied countries).In thissense, the connectionof the termwithcomplicity is of course mostprominent. This more complicated and contemporarybroader context has begun to be conand ethnographicexercise-for example, in the theoretical, structedas a rhetorical, "Public Culture" project as reflectedin thejournal of that name and in the recent at Large. Also importantfor thinking volume, cited above, by Appadurai, Modernity in the different broader contextof global politicaleconabout the scene of fieldwork modernization"; of and debate about the notionof "reflexive omy is the formulation Modernization: Politics, see Ulrich Beck, AnthonyGiddens, and Scott Lash, Reflexive in the SocialOrder(Stanford,1994). It should be noted Modern and Aesthetics Tradition, on more recentworkis a strongmove beyond his earlierconcentration thatClifford's the historicalcontext and conventionsof the ethnographic mise-en-scene;see his in the Late Twentieth (Cambridge, Mass., 1997). Century Routes:Traveland Translation Rosaldo, "ImperialistNostalgia,"87. Ibid., 69-70. and Other Genres From Mikhail Bakhtin,Speech Essays, quoted in Paul Willeman,Looks Studies and FilmTheory (Bloomington,Ind., 1994), 199. Essaysin Cultural and Frictions: In addition to the general discussionson the emergence of multisitedethnography, referencedin note 4, see, for a very specificexample, the excellent descriptionby of thismultisited among space in her fieldwork SherryOrtner of the materialization the now dispersed membersof her highschoolclass,"SherryB. Ortner,"Ethnography Among the Newark: The Class of '58 of Weequahic High School,"MichiganQuarterly Review32, no. 3 (1993). modernization(see note 19) are forme the mostsearching Discussionsabout reflexive discussionsavailable of thismode of being. theoretical and theinformantjoined buthe argued thattheanthropologist Geertzsaw thisclearly, in a calculated way bluntedtheseinsights of "anthropological irony," in the complicity

106

REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

26.

27. 28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

and pragmaticfictions. of rapportbymutual,self-interested, throughtheachievement itis based precisely on the thatI evoke here is quite different; The sense of complicity thatachieve rapport. and his subjectnotengagingin the fictions anthropologist Under the powerfulstimulusof postcolonialstudies thathave emerged throughthe of scholarssuch as Edward Said, GayatriSpivak,Homi Bhabha, and those of writings body of work in anthropologyhas develthe Subaltern Studies group, an important new exchanges beoped reassessingboth colonialism and its legacies. In reflecting as well (especially those that have come out of the tween anthropologyand history of Chicago), it has made ethnography's of Michigan and the University University traditionalbroader contextof colonialismitselfa complex object of study.While this to provide large, systematic work overlaps somewhatwiththe as-yethaltingattempts itsprogramstillremainswithin on whatis meantbythe termglobalization, perspectives positionon challengingthe regulative a framethatI believe takesa more conservative in this ideology of ethnographicpractice.As such, the ethical critique of fieldwork in body of scholarship,although immenselyenriched,is stillexpressed restrictively withcolonialismand its legacies-categories that complicity termsof anthropology's of fieldwork relationshipsthat have been created in do not encompass the diversity into,forexample, sciencestudies,media studies, forays contemporary anthropology's and politicaleconomy. 113-14. in/of the WorldSystem," Marcus, "Ethnography The more complex ethical compass of multisitedresearch can be read into Emily inAmerican the Culture Days from Bodies:TheRoleofImmunity Martin'spioneeringFlexible Age ofAIDS (Boston, 1994). While the explicitdiscussionsof complicities ofPoliotothe operating in this research are not thatdeveloped or rich in Martin'sbook, she does map verywell the special kind of moral economythatemerges fromdoing multisited fieldwork. of anthropologin theforays Multisited projectsare beginningto emergeprominently of (an outgrowth ical researchintomedia studies,the studyof scienceand technology the studyof subfieldof medical anthropology), of the prominent the diverseinterests the studyof developmentthrough and indigenous social movements, environmental thestudyofartworlds,and the of NGOs (nongovernmental theactivity organizations), research learned the methodologicalissues of multisited studyof diasporas. I myself and the worlds that through my long-termstudyof dynasticfamiliesand fortunes, Families ofDynastic theymake forothers;George E. Marcus,Livesin Trust:TheFortunes in Late-Twentieth-Century America (Boulder, 1992). While none of these arenas have quite as starkas the ones Douglas generated projectswithethicalissues of complicity each does place among the European right, Holmes has encounteredin his fieldwork relationshipsof but interesting, anthropologistand local subject in uncomfortable, in which in relationto an imaginedworldof outside sitesof activity mutual complicity interests. theyhave verydifferent in Northeast Italy Worker Peasantries Douglas R. Holmes, CulturalDisenchantments: (Princeton,1989). ConverStates: Douglas R. Holmes, "IllicitDiscourse,"in George E. Marcus,ed., Perilous and Nation, Late Editions 1 (Chicago, 1993), 255. sations on Culture, Politics, formsthebody of Holmes's "IllicitDiscourse,"and the The Bruno Gollnischinterview Richard Edmonds interview appears in "TacticalThuggery: National Socialismin the End, Late at Century's Style East End of London," in George E. Marcus,ed., TheParanoid Editions 6 (forthcoming). Holmes, "IllicitDiscourse,"258.

in AnthropologicalFieldwork The Uses of Complicity

107

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

34. As a citizen,experiencingevents largelyfroma distance and through the available media of journalism, one is inoculated against the heterogeneous seductions of the For example, an Italian reader of Holmes's Gollodious-but not as an ethnographer. discourse,whichhe found easy was notat all impressedwithGollnisch's nischinterview politicalpositionon to see throughand situate.This reader responded froman activist the left,whose own discourse has a long historyof being shaped by an embedded dialecticof distanced relationshipto the changing guises of the European right.But Gollnischis seductive,at least close-up,fromthe necessaryopenness of ethnography, in fora moment.This persuasivenessof the momentmakes illicitdiscourse effective its own politicalprojectjust as it pulls the ethnographerin as well, making him an own distinctive scholarlyprojaccomplice even as it does so in the name of the latter's fieldwork. of disinterested ect,conceived in a tradition

108

REPRESENTATIONS

This content downloaded from 206.212.0.156 on Sat, 17 Aug 2013 18:57:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions