30
( SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL) Volume 47/ Number 4 / December 1993 • 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Peace and the Future of Middle East Studies by Steven Heydemann* On September 13, 1993, the Middle Ea t became the late t region to experience the impo ible. I rael' Prime Mini ter accepted the hand offered by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Pale tine Liberation Organization and, with thi carefully choreographed hand hake, another immuta- ble condition came undone. Like the Berlin wall, the cold war, the Soviet Union, apartheid, and other contemporary landmark the Arab-I raeli contlict once appeared permanent. It had achieved a taken- for-grantedne that eemed to overwhelm the po ibility of change, eroding the impact of Anwar Sadat' trip to leru alem in November 1977, wearing away throughout the 1980 - the decade of Lebanon and the intifada-expectation that violence might, perhap , give way to reconciliation. In one moment, a moment no Ie dramatic for having been orche - trated, thi taken-for-grantedne wa hattered. It left in it wake other image that have become familiar in recent year : the hopeful chao born of new opportu- nitie and new uncertaintie ; reluctance to di card conventional but comforting wi dom ; realization that decade of awaiting the event, whether in hope or in fear, had not fully prepared u for it or for the change that eem certain to follow. I rae\' agreement with the PLO, the ub equent I raeli-lordanian agreement, and the po ibility of a Syrian-I raeli agreement in the fore eeable future, mark the beginning of a ignificant tran ition, and compari on between 1989 and 1993 are perhap inevitable. One imilarity concern the role of the United State in achieving the breakthrough. In 1989 the U.S. government watched from the ideline a the Berlin wall came down. In 1993 the United State wa not engaged in the direct event leading up to the September 13 agreement. However, in both ca e , the U.S. government played a central role in creating the condition from which breakthrough could emerge. Another imilarity empha ize the precondition for a breakthrough and the extent to which the e are recognized by government and by re earcher . A with the coUap e of the Soviet Union, the factor that t ven H yd m nn , a political ienti t, i program director of the Committee on the ar nd Middl East and the Committee on Interna- ti nal Peac nd Security. Author's notl': Thank are due to veral people who commented on a draft of thi anicle and left it better th n they found it. My de ire to thank them publi Iy hould in no way implicat them in the vi w presented here. Mich el Barnett, Lawrence Freedman, Eri Hel1>hberg , Ian Lu tick, Joel Migdal, Timothy Mitchell, M. Pri ilia tone , and Raben Vitali provld d a curate critici m and helpful ugge tion . P ace and the Future of Middl t tudi . Hl'ydl'- mann 73 Que II n of Modernity. Timothy MitchI'll and Ula Abu-Lughod 79 Re-Figuring the Family in th Middle Ea t. Mary La,l'oun 84 Bridging the Divide. JOI'I S. Migdal and John T. . K('('/l.'r 7 Current Activitie at the Council ew t ff Appointment 92 Afri an Archive and Mu um ProjeCt: 1993 A ward 93 The Future of Re arch on the Former Soviet Uni n 94 ew Look at Imperi I Ru ia 95 International Predi nation Fellow hip Wor h p 95 Cultural Citizen hip in uthe t A ia 96 Local Bioi gy 96 ati nalizing the Pa t 97 Global Land U Cov r Mod ling Won. hop 97 The Environment and Trade 9 R cent Council Publication 99 73

Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

 

Citation preview

Page 1: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

( SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL)

Volume 47/ Number 4 / December 1993 • 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

Peace and the Future of Middle East Studies by Steven Heydemann*

On September 13, 1993, the Middle Ea t became the late t region to experience the impo ible. I rael' Prime Mini ter accepted the hand offered by the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Pale tine Liberation Organization and, with thi carefully choreographed hand hake, another immuta­ble condition came undone. Like the Berlin wall, the cold war, the Soviet Union, apartheid, and other contemporary landmark the Arab-I raeli contlict once appeared permanent. It had achieved a taken­for-grantedne that eemed to overwhelm the po ibility of change, eroding the impact of Anwar Sadat' trip to leru alem in November 1977, wearing away throughout the 1980 - the decade of Lebanon and the intifada-expectation that violence might, perhap , give way to reconciliation. In one moment, a moment no Ie dramatic for having been orche -trated, thi taken-for-grantedne wa hattered . It left in it wake other image that have become familiar in recent year : the hopeful chao born of new opportu­nitie and new uncertaintie ; reluctance to di card conventional but comforting wi dom ; realization that decade of awaiting the event, whether in hope or in fear, had not fully prepared u for it or for the change that eem certain to follow.

I rae\' agreement with the PLO, the ub equent I raeli-lordanian agreement, and the po ibility of a Syrian-I raeli agreement in the fore eeable future, mark the beginning of a ignificant tran ition, and

compari on between 1989 and 1993 are perhap inevitable. One imilarity concern the role of the United State in achieving the breakthrough. In 1989 the U.S. government watched from the ideline a the Berlin wall came down. In 1993 the United State wa not engaged in the direct event leading up to the September 13 agreement. However, in both ca e , the U.S. government played a central role in creating the condition from which breakthrough could emerge. Another imilarity empha ize the precondition for a breakthrough and the extent to which the e are recognized by government and by re earcher . A with the coUap e of the Soviet Union, the factor that

• t ven H yd m nn , a political ienti t, i program director of the Committee on the ar nd Middl East and the Committee on Interna-ti nal Peac nd Security.

Author's notl': Thank are due to veral people who commented on a draft of thi anicle and left it better th n they found it. My de ire to thank them publi Iy hould in no way implicat them in the vi w presented here . Mich el Barnett, Lawrence Freedman, Eri Hel1>hberg, Ian Lu tick, Joel Migdal , Timothy Mitchell , M. Pri ilia tone , and Raben Vitali provld d a curate critici m and helpful ugge tion .

P ace and the Future of Middl t tudi . tl'~'l'n Hl'ydl'-

mann 73 Que II n of Modernity.

Timothy MitchI'll and Ula Abu-Lughod 79

Re-Figuring the Family in th Middle Ea t . Mary La,l'oun 84

Bridging the Divide. JOI'I S. Migdal and John T. . K('('/l.'r 7

Current Activitie at the Council ew t ff Appointment 92

Afri an Archive and Mu um ProjeCt:

1993 A ward 93

The Future of Re arch on the Former Soviet Uni n 94

ew Look at Imperi I Ru ia 95

International Predi nation Fellow hip Wor h p 95

Cultural Citizen hip in uthe t A ia 96

Local Bioi gy 96 ati nalizing the Pa t 97

Global Land U Cov r Mod ling Won. hop 97

The Environment and Trade 9 R cent Council Publication 99

73

Page 2: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

prefigured the September 13 agreement-the intifada, Jordan' 1988 di engagement from the We t Bank the PLO' 1988 renunciation of terrori m, the Gulf War, the return to power of I rae I , Labor Party, the U.S.- pon ored peace proce -were evident beforehand. Pro pect for peace eemed more likely than at any time ince 1977. Yet de pite it connec­tion to a relatively clear et of precondition , the agreement wa not perceived or understood to be inevitable. It appear a a breakthr ugh preci ely becau e of the uncertainty that continued to urround pro pect for an Arab-I raeli ettlement even a the condition for a ettlement fell into place. The accumulation of precondition and the tatu of the agreement as the outcome of a proce were not in and of them elve ufficient to overcome thi uncertainty. In the end, an anticipated outcome nonethele came a a urpri e. A third com pari on draw on the problem of con olidating Ea tern Europe' tran ition to under core the fragility of the I raeli-Arab agreement , and the va t difficultie that mu t till be overcome in reaching and u taining an Arab-I raeli peace.

The I raeli-Pale tin ian accord mu t al 0 be carefully di tingui hed from previou tran ition . De pite the importance of the September 13 break­through, it has not-at least n t yet-brought about the collap e of a y tern of rule, change of govern­ment, or hift in leader hip of any of the tate and movement involved in the proce . Movement toward a generalized Arab-I raeli peace, which hould continue to be under tood a a po ibility, will

re hape the Middle Ea t in profound way . Yet it doe not appear at pre ent to be a deeply tran forma­tive a the di integration of the Soviet Union and the end of communi m in Ea tern Europe. Similarly, the tudy of the Middle Ea t i not equivalent to the tudy of the Arab-I raeli conflict, and the tran ition

toward Arab-I raeli agreement will leave important area of re earch relatively unchanged.

Nonethele ,the I raeli-PLO agreement confront the field of Middle East tudie with a major theoretical opening and hold out the po ibility of e tabli hing the region a a m re widely recognized ite for the development and te ting of ocial cience

theory. Thi would be an important hift in the tatu of the Middle East within the ocial cience. With few exception it ha been the focu of relatively little grand theory, whether in international relation or other relevant field (a condition that ha it

74\1TEM

benefits a well a it co t ). The region has bor­rowed-and refined-more theory than it has yet in pired. 1 A a re ult, the breakthrough repre ented by the September 13 agreement i unlikely to generate the highly public and critical elf-interroga­tion that accompanied the end of the cold war and more likely to be taken a a valuable theoretical turning point.

For ocial cienti ts generally, the proce e which led to the agreement and the change till to come offer an extraordinary opportunity to rethink exi ting paradigm , te t long tanding a umption, e tabli h important new re earch priori tie , and develop a re earch agenda capable of explaining not only the breakthrough of September 13, but the larger tran ition from war to peace, a proce comparable in it implication and the cope of it con equence to the tran ition from dictatorship to democracy or from command to market economy. Indeed, a a tarting point, our conceptual understanding would be enriched by expanding the notion of tran ition to include proce e of peacemaking along ide proce e of political and economic tran formation, incorporat­ing a well the interaction among the three. Peace­making i a much the domain of dome tic life a of diplomacy, engaging i ue of coalition building, the con truction of ocial pact , economic and ocial policie ,development trategie , i ue of identity and culture, in titutional role and relation hip , religion and politic , the effect of regime type on the management of peace, and tate- ociety relation in their broade t en e.

Elements of a new research agenda

What are orne of the concern that might hape a new re earch agenda in Middle Ea t ocial cience? The po ibilitie ugge ted here are nece arily tentative and preliminary, if not peculative. The contours of an Arab-I raeli peace will take hape only over time. It will be many year before a generalized

I Con iderable theoretic I literature h ve encompa d the Arab-l raeli and other Middle Eastern conni IS. however. including tho concerned With the sociological effec of protracted connict; internation I negotia­tion; conOI t re lution; Civil-military reI lin ; arms control; nuclear nd con venti nal weapon proliferati n; foreign policy deci ion making; the political economy of militarization; foreign policy-dome tic poli y interaction ; the psycho- ial and developm ntal consequence of conni t, among m ny othe . All of these pproache and literature will be pu hed in re ponding adequ tely to the tran iti n t in motion a re ult of the September 13 agreement.

VOLUME 47, NUMBER 4

Page 3: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Arab-I raeli peace can be regarded a con olidated or in titutionalized, and the empirical data to upport new re earch agenda are only now being created. Moreover, there will be important area of continuity in Middle Ea t ocial cience acro the pre- and po t-agreement period . Even at thi early juncture, however, a number of re earch que tion can be identified a early candidate for the increa ed attention of re earcher .

One important area concern preci ely the effect of peace on tate and tate tructure in the Middle Ea t. While war did not "make" the po t-colonial tate of the region in the fa hion under tood (and

challenged) by cholar of Europe, the Arab-I raeli conflict ha had perva ive and profound effect on proce e of tate building and on the organization of relation between tate and ocietie throughout the region. It ha been a powerful force tructuring tate economie; haping local culture ; e tabli hing the condition for ocial and political mobilization; molding the character of ruling ideologie ; ordering inter- tate relation ; and defining the interaction between regional tate and external powers. 2

The on et of the Arab-I raeli confrontation a a formal inter- tate conflict in 1948 contributed to the mo t far-ranging re tructuring of Middle Ea t dome tic politic ince the collap e of the Ottoman Empire, and perhap of the 20th century. Occurring imultaneou ly with, and partly the product of,

de-colonization and po t-World War II tran it ion to independence, the conflict became an inextricable component of the economic, political, ideological, and ocial truggle that have defined the experience of tatehood for both Arab and I raeli . Partly for thi rea on, peace may well give ri e to a new era of in tability and change, particularly among the national ecurity regime of the Arab world, of which Syria i perhap the leading example. In the e ca e the conflict ha erved an important legitimating function and provided ju tification for economic and political arrangement -the privileging of militarie , burgeoning internal ecurity apparatu e , political repre ion-which might otherwi e be untenable and appear increa ingly frayed in any event. A peace become con olidated it will create a con picuou gap

2 11Ie i u are currently being e plored by the Joint Commill on th ear and Middl East through a project on "War a Source of tate and Social Tran fonnation in the Middl East." with the uppon of the Ford Found tion .

DECEMBER 1993

in the rai on d'etat of uch regime and it i not yet clear whether or how they will be able to fill thi gap. It i po ible that national ecurity ideologie will prove re i tant to the di appearance of the enemy. They may find dome tic enemie enough to u tain them. It i conceivable, however that the e

regime will change, gradually etting a ide the ideology of national ecurity for the challenge of economic development, the defen e of eculari m, of I lam, or the need for political reform. Under tanding the potential effect of peace on the e regime i an important component of a new Middle Ea t re earch agenda.

The effect of an eventual peace agreement on uch regime will be complicated further by it imulta­neou occurrence with proce e of economic and, to orne extent, political liberalization. The e interac­

tion likewi e de erve attention. Identifying politically manageable trategie of economic reform ha become a preoccupation of governments throughout the Middle Ea t. Adju ting the e trategie to take peace into account i likely to be an even more daunting ta k. Fitting peace into dome tic political and economic agendas already facing evere train not likely to be viewed a an unmitigated good. Whether Syria' authoritarian regime, for example, could expect to urvive the increa ing flow of people, information, and good acro it border i almo t certain to be a con ideration in it ongoing negotiation with I rae\. Such concern ugge t that tran forming formal peace into ub tantive relation of peace i contingent on more than period of confidence building and the de ign of demilitarized zone . It hinge a well on the capacity of regime in the region to manage the complex of pre ure produced by multiple, imultaneou tran it ion . Or, hould they fail to manage the e pre ure on the

kind of regime that take their place: ecular­democratic, radical-I lamic, ingle-party Arab nationali t, I lamic-democratic, military-authoritarian, or orne other configuration or combination.

A government gradually begin to re tructure their dome tic political economie in re pon e to peace, a proce certain to generate it own conflict and ten ion further economic, political economy, and ociological concern will be added to the re earch

agenda. Middle Ea tern tate exhibit among the highe t level of military pending in the world, only partly driven by the Arab-I raeli conflict. With the emergence of a generalized Arab-I raeli peace,

1TEMS175

Page 4: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

however, orne tate will confront the difficultie and the opportunitie of demilitarization and reduced military pending. Building the economic infra truc­ture nece ary to u tain peace will require more than the goodwill and contribution of the interna­tional community. It will al 0 require the ucce ful negotiation of agreement governing the allocation of carce economic re ource , e pecially water; the

renegotiation of regional trading practice ; and the reorganization of linkage between individual tate and the global economy. In orne re pect, peace may make it po ible to re tore trading pattern that prevailed prior to 1948 when, for example, Pale tine erved a Syria' large t export market.

The tate engaged in peacemaking will al 0

contend with i ue relating to economic conver ion and the tran formation of military-indu trial com­plexe to non-military u e . Anticipating dimini hed need for military manpower, government will be pu hed to cope with the economic and ocial con equence of military build-down, from ri ing unemployment to di content among the armed force . Military bureaucracie may re pond to the e chal­lenge by a uming a direct role in production for civilian ector, blurring di tinction between the two. Expanding the role of the military beyond defen e of national ecurity to the provi ion of ocial ervice i another po ibility. Both are already pre ent in Egypt and could well pread to other tate . Should peace lead to an economic b m for the region, a orne have predicted, the impact of military build-down could be ab orbed by expanding econ mie . Whether peace will create pro perity, however, or can do 0

quickly enough to mitigate the effect of reduced mil­itary expenditure , will have a profound effect on the economic capacity of tate to re pond to the ocial con equence of peace. How to de ign ocial eco­nomic, and political policie to capture the economic benefit of peace-while en uring adequate ecurity -i likely to become an important ource of debate and controversy in the years ahead, and an area f con iderable intere t to ocial cienti t .

Not only the economic-political or the military­trategic realm are haped by war and re haped by

movement toward peace. Culture , educational y tern , labor flow , demographic pattern , gender

relation, literature, media, theater, art , mu ic, unavoidably reflect in powerful way the pre ence of the Arab-I raeli conflict, and have been tudied in relation to the conflict by anthropologi t , dem gra-

76\ITEM

pher, ocial p ychologi t, ociologi t , and humani t repre enting a range of field . Important egment of thi re earch have e tabli hed the

d main of culture and identity a meaningful arena within which conflict i interpreted, con tructed, conte ted, legitimated and defined. The pro pect for a ucce ful tran ition from war to peace are clearly linked to the outcome of truggle within the e domain . Until now, the di cour e and vocabularie of war have dominated tho e of peace in Middle Ea tern popular culture . How the tran ition from war to peace find it expre ion in the e di course , vocabularie and culture rai e important que tion for cholar of the region.

The i ue mentioned thu far tend to a ume the pre ence of a tate. For the Pale tin ian , however, the immediate con equence of the tran ition from war to peace will develop in the ab ence of formal tate tructure , even recognizing that the September 13

agreement may lead to the eventual e tabli hment of an independent Pale tine and/or to a redefined relation hip with Jordan. Indeed, the experience of Pale tinian during the interim period covered by the agreement and beyond are likely to fit well with other ca e of tate-building brought about through civil conflict, decolonization, or the di engagement of a ruling authority and hould be een a a valuable laboratory for the tudy of tate formation in proce In a mall bit of irony that will urpri e few b erver of the Middle Ea t, one ca e to draw on for hi toric parallel i the experience of the Zioni t movement during it tran ition to tatehood in the decade prior to 1948.

But the Pale tinian national m vement face i ue m re appropriately under tood in light of different experience. In grafting an exile leader hip tructure onto the well developed political movement of the We t Bank and Gaza the experience of the African National Congre may offer m re u eful parallel . The experience of other African tate - Mozam­bique, Zimbabwe, and now S uth Africa, may provide u eful Ie on for under tanding the problem as ociated with integrating former combatant into a newly emerging civil ociety. Central American experience may al 0 provide u eful, if not rea ur­ing, reference point for under tanding thi proce . I rae I , di engagement from the occupied territorie may be explored through compari on with the experience of the French in Algeria or, m re

VOL IE 47. N !B R 4

Page 5: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

pe imi tically, with the Briti h in Northern Ireland. 3

Exploring the impact of movement toward peace on the Pale tine Liberation Organization, and on the Pale tinian national movement more generally, i equally important for under tanding the pro peet for con olidating the September 13 agreement. How the PLO a a national movement re pond to the partial attainment of it hi toric mi ion, and how it re pond as it undergoe the tran ition from oppo i­tion to government hould rank among the mo t important concern of Middle Ea t ocial cienti t .

Regional implications

Tracing the dome tic effect of Arab-I raeli peace rai e que tion ,a well, about where to locate it origin and how to under tand it potential regional con equence . A variety of dome tic, regional, and international factor contributed to the September 13 breakthrough. Some of the e are ea ily identified, uch a the intifada and the end of the cold war.

However, moving beyond merely pecifying the e factor to explore their interconnection and as e the relative weight of their contribution to reaching the agreement provide u eful opportunitie to addre theoretical concern regarding the relation hip between international- y temic level variable, tate tructure , inter- tate relation , and dome tic politic .

Should the re olution of the Arab-I raeli conflict be con idered principally a a by-product of the po t­cold war tran formation of the international political y tern, and the re tructuring of definition of tate

intere t among the great power which followed it demi e? If the ab ence of the cold war can explain the re olution of the Arab-I raeli Conflict, can it pre ence during the previou five decade explain the conflict' durability? Framing the que tion in thi way i ufficient to prompt re ervation about imputing too much cau al ignificance to the cold war. Perhap it functioned in tead a an intervening variable, hap­ing but not determining dome tic and regional dy­namic in way that became fully apparent only with it pa ing? Or perhap it played an intervening role of a different kind, temporarily preventing a re olu­tion of conflict linked to the early 20th century emergence of Arab and Jewi h nationali m, the col-

'Thi com pari n i pre nted in a new rudy by Ian Lu tick. Un t'1-Iit'd Stalt' • Di pUIt'd Lands: Britain and Irtland. Franct' and Algt'ria. Israt'l and lilt' WI' , 8ank-Ga~a (Ithaca: Cornell University Pre • 1993) .

DECE tBER 1993

lap e of the Ottoman Empire, and the ettlement which brought World War I to a clo e and inaugu­rated the Briti h Mandate in Pale tine. Understanding the hi torical context of interaction acro interna­tional, regional, and dome tic level variable in defin­ing the course and the resolution of the Arab-l raeli Conflict i a more complex matter than can be iIlu -trated here. Moreover, the conflict i ju t one len through which the e interaction may be explored profitably, both in the Middle Ea t and more broadly. Comparative and hi torically-informed re earch inte­grating the Arab-I raeli Conflict and other ca e of po t-cold war conflict re olution would be helpful in under tanding the relative contribution of y temic, regional, and dome tic factor in the ettlement of long tanding regional conflict , and in orting out the differential effect of the cold war on a variety of form of regional conflict.

Related to the e concern are the i ue of whether and how the Middle Ea t' other conflict will be affected by the tran ition from war to peace, a well a it impact on inter-Arab and regional relation and relation hip between Middle Ea tern tate and external power . For decade , the conflict ha been depicted both a the principal factor haping the region' relation with external power and, alterna­tively, a one of many regional conflict, one who e effect on the e relation hip have been exaggerated. The conflict' influence on the tructure and form of inter-Arab relation ha been imilarly debated. It ha been de cribed both a a unifying force, providing Arab regime with a common cau e, and a a divi ive force, repre enting one of many arena of competition and conflict among Arab government . With agree­ments in place between I rael, the PLO, and Jordan, the pro pect for re olving the e di agreement now eem quite trong. More important, the ab ence of

the conflict offer an important opportunity to focu more clearly on the underlying dynamic haping inter-Arab relation . Such effort will have ub tantial literature to draw on. Regional relation are a dimen ion of Middle Ea tern politic that have been more broadly theorized than orne, from the 1960 literature that treated the region a a ubordinate ub y tern to Stephen Walt' more recent work

drawing on the region to develop a new theory of the origin of alliance .4 Together with tudie of the

• t ph n M. Walt. Tht' Origin of Allianct's (Ithaca: Cornell University Pre • 19 7).

ITE 1 177

Page 6: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

foreign policie of Arab tate and the international relation of the Middle Ea t, thi work offer important in ight into the dynamic of regional relation , and link the e understanding to interna­tional relation theory more generally. Nonethele , the emergence of Arab-I raeli peace in the context of a po t-cold war international y tern h uld trengthen cholarly intere t in the region a an arena for te ting

and developing theory that examine the dynamic of inter- tate behavior.

Finally, it i to be hoped that the tran ition from war to peace will al 0 affect the pro pect for undertaking re earch not only on the i ue pre ented here, but on a much wider range of concern extending well beyond the immediate effect of the tran ition. Peace will not only create new re earch agenda ; it may well re hape the re earch environ­ment, lowly overcoming the con iderable, at time evere, con traint on the conduct of re earch

confronting cholar from the region a well a cholars who tudy the region from el ewhere. Peace

i not likely to produce an immediate change in the outlook of governments toward re earch and re earch­er , nor per uade them immediately to inve t in rebuilding the intellectual and re earch infra tructure of the region. Yet a the circum tance created in re pon e to decade of Arab-I raeli conflict give way to the gradual can olidation of peace, ob tacle to re earch in the Middle East may well dimini h,

7 \ ITE I

opening the path to re earch agenda which, until now, cholar have only been able to glimp e.

A image of the event of September 13 fade, and attention turn to the enormou difficultie which remain to be overcome in making the agreement a reality the tremendou en e of po ibilitie created by the igning of the agreement i alma t certain to dimini h. Condition in which the agenda umma­rized here become meaningful may appear remote for orne time. Unfortunately, tran ition are rarely linear. More often they are me y, di continuou , and ambiguou, ubject to etback , retreats, or rever al . Me ine ,however, hould not dimini h the theoretical ignificance of the tran ition or it value a an organizing framework for re earch. The pa age from war to peace in the Middle Ea t will not be completed quickly or moothly. Nonethele ,it i one of the rna t fa cinating and can equential change of the late 20th century and repre ent a moment of can iderable potential for the ocial cience . A pect of life in the region will not be ub tantially altered by peace. Yet much will change and the e change require that ocial cienti t -e pecially but not exclu ively tho e with experti e in the region-a k new que tion , reexamine conventional wi dom , explore new method and approache , and promote the development of re earch agenda capable of understanding and explaining the tran formation repre ented by the agreement of September 13. •

VOL IE 47, N MBER 4

Page 7: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Questions of Modernity by Timothy Mitchell and Lila Abu-Lughod*

In May 1993 a group of cholar of the Middle East and South A ia met in Cairo for a conference on "Que tion of Modernity: Strategie for Po t­Orientali t Scholar hip on South A ia and the Middle Ea t." The meeting brought together peciali t on two region that the border of area tudie u ually keep apart, to explore que tion common to the two area ari ing out of current critique of the cholar-hip of Orientali m and the di cour e of modernity. **

South A ia and the Middle Ea t are region that exemplify orne of the mo t pre ing and paradoxical feature of contemporary global ociety: the ten ion between uppo edly ecular regime and the religiou ba i of political allegiance; between the apparent tability of po t-colonial national boundarie and the

fragility of communal harmony; between 0 ten ibly democratic form and the realitie of oligarchic rule; between the technology of armament and pace indu trie and the poverty of pea ant agriculture; between the profe ional advancement of women and their taking on the veil; between the flow of touri ts and the di placement of refugee ; between the importing of con umer luxurie and the export of labor migrant; and between the flouri hing of film, televi ion, and video indu trie and the per i tence of rna illiteracy.

Such contradiction have commonly been explained in term of the contra t between tradition and modernity, the two condition coexi ting temporarily a the former gave way to the latter. Yet recent cholar hip ha hown not imply that the traditional

ha refu ed to give way, but that practice that were called traditional are often better under tood a the product of recent hi torical condition . The traditional and the modem are two outcome of the arne proce . Modernity, moreover, i now expo ed to all kind of po t-modern cri i and critique. Individual-i m, eculari m, cience, culture, and nationhood are no longer the certaintie they once eemed. They can be diagno ed a political con truction that have

• Tim thy Mitchell i an iate profe r in the Depanment of Politi at ew York Univ rltity; Lil Abu-Lughod i an iate profe r in the Department of Anthropology. al t ew Yon. Univer-lIy.

ee the auth rlt· note at the end of thi anicl .

DECE lBER 1993

produced particular hi tori cal form of power, elf-identity, exclu ion, and ubjection.

Thi awarene ha demanded the development of new theoretical trategie in hi tory and the ocial cience . Once the pre-modem and the modem are no

longer taken a given , with hi tory a a unilinear movement of development from one to the other and politic a the imple re olving of contradiction between the two, we can analyze modernity not a an hi torical condition but a a political project. Thi project can be een a a proce of con tructing, grouping and devaluing certain identitie and activitie a traditional by placing them in ubordinate oppo ition to another group con tructed and privi­leged a the modem.

Examining the traditional/modern construction

The aim of the Cairo conference wa to examine how thi traditional/modem con truction wa created within South A ian and Middle Ea tern ocietie how it i u tained or challenged today, and wha~ form of ubjectivity and ocial identity are its re ult. By comparing South A ian and Middle Ea tern ca e we hoped to focu and deepen the e que tion , in the belief that, while regional experti e i nece ary, many of the a umption about modernity that govern re earch on particular region of the world are u tained by the barrier that area tudie maintain

between them. Fifteen participant prepared paper for the

conference. We grouped their pre entation around three theme: knowledge, nationhood, and ubal­tern . The fir t group of papers examined the con titution of cientific and ocial- cientific knowl­edge in the colonial and po t-colonial tate, exploring ca e that included biomedicine, development di cour e, economic , and political cience. The econd et of paper dealt with i ue concerning the

con truction of nationhood. The paper drew on ource including literature, cinema, televi ion

programming, and the minutiae of cultural tyle to examine problem of gender identity, dome ticity, eculari m, and citizen hip in the creation of modem

political identitie . The final group of paper examined the formation of ubaltern group in the colonial period, rai ing que tion about cla formation and examining form of identity and exclu ion created by the reordering and repre entation of rural and national pace.

ITEM 179

Page 8: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

The fir t theme to emerge from the conference wa the need to reexamine the way in which moderni t project were produced within the colonial context. There wa general agreement that thi reexamination had progre ed further in South A ian than in Middle Ea tern tudie . For example, the tory of how modem biomedical practice was articulated within nineteenth-century Egypt i till tructured by a nationali t and modernizing narrative, in which Egyptian reformer employ European expert to truggle again tare i tant and ignorant tradition.

Reexamining the ource • it wa argued. revealed a Ie clearcut picture. Several element aid to be di tinctive of modem biomedicine could be found in pre-modem I lamic medical practice, while the practice of modem medicine in Egypt wa continually tran formed or corrupted by local re i tance and the unauthorized intermixing of uppo edly pre-modem element . Similar arguments were made concerning other moderni t project of the colonial and po t­colonial period.

Di placing modernity

Participants in the meeting rai ed everaJ pr blem with thi effort to reconceptualize the nature of modernity in the colonial encounter. Some participant que tioned the weight being given to the colonial dimen ion of the encounter, a well a the broader revival of intere t in colonial tudie. They pointed out that in the Middle East everaJ countrie , including Turkey and Iran were never formally colonized, yet developed imilar moderni t project and encountered imilar form of re i tance and tran formation.

Other participants argued that thi kind of revi ion of the account of moderni t project failed, m re fundamentally, to break with the general narrative of modernity and tradition. By bringing to light the pre ence of moderni t element in the pre-modem r the corruption of modernity by the traditional element it claimed to replace, one could complicate the tory of modernity but not e cape it ba ic term . The critique remained within a narrative of the coming of modernity from the We t and local attempt to re i t or alter it. It did n t di turb or di place the po ition the different element occupy in thi tory, po ition which are them elve a igned by the larger project of modernity.

Our di cu ion of the variou paper brought ut a number of different way to try and move beyond

\ ITEM

the e po ition . One et of debate turned around the place of religiou -ba ed and minority politic in the modem tate. In the development of Indian national­i m, for example, a thoroughly ecular and cientific approach to the reorganization of ociety wa continually corrupted by an appeal to religion a the ource of national trength and identity. Thi

incon i tency, it wa argued, did not repre ent the persi tence of traditional element or their influence over individual moderni t thinker , but an ambiguity in moderni t di course it elf. The attempt to organize ociety cientifically wa popularly perceived a eliti t

and We tern, and a ociated with the colonial power. However, thi negative perception wa reduced by the contradictory appeal to religion. Modernity' need to appropriate religion for the nationali t project can be een a a mark of it failed hegemony. But the

contradiction opened up a pace for the organization of religion a political intere t within the frame of nation ali t politic -and hence for the modem and wholly ecular politic of communali m.

The con titution of a national minority within the modem tate provided a further avenue to explore the ambiguitie of moderni t di cour e. Nationali m claim to be a univer al and unifying di cour e. but it univer ali m tend to emerge from the contingent. provi ional articulation of di parate element and i inevitably incomplete. Thu Indian nationali m brought together the radical, cientific-ba ed ecular­i m of Nehru with the populi t, Gandhian appeal to a ubaltern culture den e with Hindu religiou ymbol­

i m. Thi combination inevitably placed Mu lim Indian in the ambiguou po ition of a national minority, unable to be con idered modem Indian unle they abandoned their Mu lim identity and unable to be Mu lim unle they abandoned their claim to equal citizen hip. Mu lim eparati m. it followed, wa not the expre ion of a primordial identity but the nece ary Mu lim re pon e to a modernity that offered them only the partial identity of being the min r term. the other. of Indian nationali m.

From the i ue of national minoritie we moved to a br ader et of que tion about the con truction of modem identitie . In the critique of modernity, it wa argued. we need to reexamine the way the hi torie of local ubjectivitie alway tend to be written from the per pective of a global narrative of tran ~ rma­tion . The tory of working-cla formati n, for example. i never a uniform proce and cann t be

VOLU IE 47, 18ER 4

Page 9: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

reduced to the mechanical emergence of a ocial group to elf-con ciou ne . In the Egyptian ca e it wa hown how working-cla identity wa created di cur ively in the context of a dominant di cour e of nationhood and citizen hip. The term and po ition in thi di cursive field came to be perceived a fixed and e ential identitie , but were in fact the contin­gent outcome of unequal local truggle .

Somewhat imilar proce e were di cu ed in the con titution of the Sa'idi, the per on from outhern Egypt, a the ou ider within Egyptian national identity. Since the nineteenth century, it wa argued, the multiple cultural form , different identitie , and varietie of domination among the people of the Egyptian outh have taken on an ab tract ingularity. The Sa'idi ha come to repre ent tradition. He i d fined in term of an ahi torical and anti-modem e ence, alway out ide the tory of Egyptian nationali m, an abnormality in need of emancipation. How thi fixing occurred can be traced in particular through the ocial production of the Sa' id a a fixed pace- in cada tral urvey, irrigation pr ~ect , and

development cherne ince the nineteenth century that homogenized and located Sa'idi with a geo­graphical pace imagined in term of an emergent agro-economic di cour e, that i , in term of their en unter with the metropolitan pr ~ect of modernity. The power of thi fixing can be een in the way Sa'idi continued to occupy thi original pace of tradition, even a the uneven development of capitali m forced their migration north and abroad.

The moderni t con truction of pace and personhood wa al 0 ex pI red in the ca e of the making of a coolie in colonial Ceylon. Modernity br ught unique notion of boundary, haping imultane u Iy the con truction of territorial pace and of per onhood. The plantation in Ceylon was imagined a a bounded, controlled pa e, like a tate, but it boundarie were actually

porou and the eparation between it and the local village wa imperfect at be t. The coolie, on the other hand, was denied pers nhood: hel he wa n t a properly bounded modem elf ince as an un killed worker hel he wa robbed of agency. Both the plantation and the c lie fell h rt of the moderni t image of the genuinely modem and in thi en e gave ju tificati n t colonial c ntr I.

Hybrid categories

An ther way in which que tion of patial imagery and the boundary were u ed to interr gate moderni t

DFCE lBER 1993

di cour e wa in the di cu ion of the idea of an economy. The di cur ive con truction of the modem economy a a uniform pace pre ume a non­economic exterior. The hou ehold, particularly the ub i tence-oriented rural hou ehold, i imagined to

occupy uch an external pace, out ide the capitali t economy. Yet tudie of individual hou ehold reveal people living hybrid live that cannot be re olved into the economic versu the non-economic or capitali m versu ub i tence. If rural hou ehold e cape the categ rie of moderni t di course, it wa argued, the point i not to celebrate thi a a form of re i tance, eeing in the pea antry a primordial oppo it ion to

modernity, but to how how moderni m' categorie are nece arily incomplete and cannot mark their own edge . The attempt to e tabli h an edge create a margin of indeterminacy that modernity cannot era e.

Thi topic wa one of everal in which our di cu ion focu ed on the indeterminacy produced at the point of contact between the modem and the non-modem. The e moment of indeterminacy were explored mo t fully in an analy i of the articulation of modem cience in colonial India. To produce the authority of cience, it wa h wn, cientific di cour e had to engage continuou Iy with local form of knowledge and belief, which were to be repo itioned a archaic and irrational. Modernity can only produce it elf out of the proce of differentiat­ing what i non-modem. But thi proce i alway one f renegotiation and tran lation, in which neither ide remain the arne. For in appropriating the

n n-modern to perform it authority, the modem i alway open to contagion, to di emination. to hybridization. It ingular authority and authenticity, it wa argued, i alway produced out of thi hybridity.

Thi di cu ion brought u back to the central que ti n of whether one can write analy e of modernity that di turb, rather than reproduce, the po ition and oppo ition mapped out by the di -c ur e of modernity it elf. At lea t three point emerged. Fir t, focu ing on the performance or articulation of modernity enable u to break with the hi torical narrative that alway locate the origin of modernity in the We t and repre ent the non-We t only in term of it effort to copy and/or re i t an imported, econd-hand modernity. To produce the modem alway already require the non-modem, the pace of colonial difference. Second. concentrating

on the local articulati nand di emination of

ITE 1 /

Page 10: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

modernity mean paying Ie attention to the grand de ign of the colonial or modernizing tate and m re attention to the myriad local ite where the modem i produced, and tran formed, in it encounter with and production of the non-modem. Third, the categorie and oppo ition that are renegotiated in the e ite produce particular, contingent tran forma­tion . Such local di location can repre ent point of weakne ,where the trategie of modernity are renegotiated, it binary oppo it ion di placed, and it apparently fixed and overarching identitie di turbed.

Certain image from the c e tudie conden ed orne of the e i ue in uch a vivid way that they

came to be invoked in our di cu ion a metonym. For example, the recollection of an elite child' perception of lower cia picnicker on a Turki h i land as inappropriately dre ed interlopers became "men in their pajama." The reference wa to the way a powerful modem/traditional di tinction came to be mapped onto cia and tatu difference marked by dre and everyday behavior. The day-tripper wearing pajama and recreating dome tic cene outdoor were perceived a traditional when in fact the practice of picnicking and the form of urban lei ure it repre ented were entirely novel. A econd example wa an image from Satyajit Ray' film, The Home and the World, in which the pr tected mi tre of the Indian home fingered the umptuou fabric of her Engli h-manufactured ari . The home, the cene of the traditional i hown here a alway already infiltrated by it uppo ed oppo ite, the world of colonial power, even a the two are counterpo ed.

Choo ing tools and trategies

In hifting our attention to the particular ite at which modernity and it oppo ite are articulated or taged, we were challenged by the need to develop

appr priate conceptual tool . The effort to gra p the complex nature of everyday realitie of ubaltern gr up like rural televi ion viewer in Egypt, the target of the didactic modernizing effort of urban culture indu try profe ional, led to a erie of debate about the relative analytical power and theoretical implication of term uch as compartmen­talizati n, leakage, di emination, eepage, hybridity, and the Gram cian "common en e." It wa ug-ge ted that the conditi n f modernity it elf wa one in which the eclectic cultural experience of uch ocial group might eemingly be bifurcated into

2\1TEM

traditional and modem element only becau e of their anxiety about the future and the analy t ' anxiety about hybrid categorie . The challenge i how to allow for a third po ibility be ide re i tance or capitulation to moderni t projects on the part of tho e ubjected to them, an intellectual project made

nece ary by the obviou fact that global homogeniza­tion ha not occurred.

Thi particularization of what in the moderni t project i pre ented a univer al and ab tract wa vividly exemplified in the literature of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iran on the homeland. Nationhood i a key term in the lexicon of modernity. Yet in thi ca e, the gendering of the concept of the nation in literature, pre enting it variou Iy a a mother figure and a lover, enabled a tunning range of nationali t entiment from protectivene to erotic love. In tum, thi vi ioning of the nation as female had implication for the right of women a citizen and compatriot . Thi ca e, like many analyzed by femini t cholar, how how pecific and variou are the uppo ed universali m of modernity.

At variou point during the conference, animated debate provoked by concern about the political implication of critique of modernity and ari ing from experience in pecific Middle Ea tern or S uth A ian countrie reminded u of the contradiction of moderni t project . Perceived a emancipatory by certain ocial group uch projects a literacy, biomedicine, and republicani m opened up pace for new activitie and new ubjectivitie that tran formed the ocial map and people' live. Similarly, it wa argued, critique of modernity might al 0 be politi­cally enabling, e pecially in the refiguring of po ibilitie for identity in ituation con trained by the term of moderni t di course, uch a communal­i t India.

It had been our intention, in organizing thi conference, to addre certain contradiction inherent in the theoretical ground opened up by the critique of Orientali m. We had noted that there wa a ten ion between relying on the po t- tructurali t critique of Enlightenment value and invoking orne of tho e arne emancipatory and humani t value in order to

engage with authoritarian political and cultural tructure . Such contradiction could be related to

broader contradiction within South A ian and Middle Ea tern ocietie , where political group find them elve challenging the We t or it modernity in the name of an authenticity and elfhood that has

VOLUME 47. Nu tBER 4

Page 11: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

it elf been formed within the hi tory of the moderniz­ing project and therefore tend to incorporate a pect of the Orientali t tradition. Our intention wa not to move beyond the e contradiction , which are probably inevitable, but to help bring them to light and how how an awarene of them could deepen our under tanding of the di tinctive hi tory and politic of modernity.

Our di cu ion helped clarify the way in which, within any rna ter narrative or di cour e, however encompas ing it categorie appear, lie element that allow for both elf-critique and the potential for moving beyond it . A one participant put it, recalling the men in pajama, "Modernity i a di cour e in drag; it i alway cro -dre ed." In other word , it mu t alway reach out to appropriate what i alien in order to perform it elf, to e tabli h it difference. In thi attempted appropriation, di location occur and point of weakne emerge. It i from the e point that a po t-Orientali t critique can begin .

Author ' Note: Thi article draw in detail upon the argument presented in the individual conference papers whose authors and title are Ii ted below. At the ame time, within the limit of thi report , we have been unable to represent the argument of every paper or to cover the full range of debate and di agreement that the pape provoked.

Funding for the Que tion of Modernity project wa provided by an SSRC Tran national and Comparative Research Grant with additional upport from the Joint Commillee on the Near and Middle East. The authors of thi article initiated the project , in con ultation with Gyan Prak h (Princeton University) and Ro alind O'Hanlon (Cambridge University) . A planning meeting in New York in April 1992 aJ in luded Shahid Amin, In titute for Advanced Study Berlin/Delhi University; Aye ha JaJaJ,

DECEMBER 1993

Columbia University; Zach Lockman, Harvard University; and David Ludden , University of Penn ylvania.

The participant and papers at the Cairo conference were: Lila Abu-Lughod , " Not Falcon Cre t: Culture as Politic in Egyptian Televi ion"; Partha Challerjee, Center for Studie in Social Science, CaJculla, "A Modem Science of Politic For India"; E. VaJentine Daniel , University of Michigan , "The Coolie: A Not-So-Modern-Person in a Hyper-Modem Space?"; Nichola Dirk , University of Michigan , "The Home and the World: The Invention of Modernity in Colonial India" ; Khaled Fahmy, Cairo, " Medicine and Power in 19th Century Egypt" ; Deniz Kandiyoti , University of London, SOAS, "Gendering the Modem: Refa h­ioning Masculine and Feminine Identitie " ; Zachary Lockman, Harvard University, " Imagining the Working Class: Culture,

ationali m and Clas Formation" ; Timothy Mitchell , "At the Edge of the Economy" ; Soheir Morsy, Alexandria, "Sociomedi­cal Discourse and Critical Scholarship: Moderni m, Po t­Moderni m, and the Pursuit of Relevance" ; Aamir Mufti, Columbia University, " Sign of Trouble: The Mu lim Problem in Indian Modernity" ; Af aneh Najmabadi , Barnard College, Columbia University, "Beloved and Mother: The Erotic Vata,,: To Love, to Hold and to Protect" ; Pramod Parajuli , Society for Participating Cultural Education, Nepal, "Beyond India the 'Orient' and India the 'Underdeveloped' : Toward a Non­Dominating Knowledge" ; Gyan Prakash, Princeton University, " Authorizing Science as Modernity In Colonial India"; and Martina Rieker, American University in Cairo, "Marginality and Modernity: Figuring the Sa'idi Peasantry in the Egyptian Nation ." Michael Gilsenan, Oxford University, prepared a paper, "Histo­rie ,Narrative and Modernitie : Problem in Writing Anthropol­ogy," but w unable to altend .

In addition, Soraya Altorki, American University in Cairo; Joel Beinin, Stanford University; Huri i lamoglu-inan, Middle East Technical University; Huda Lutfi , American University in Cairo; and Ted Swedenburg, American University in Cairo, served as di u ant . Two members of the SSRC taff, Steven Heydemann and Toby Volkman , altended the conference and a third, Ben Zimmer, provided valuable help in it preparation . •

ITEM / 83

Page 12: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Re-Figuring the Family in the Middle East: Comparative Perspectives by Mary Layoun*

Family tructure are often aid to be a central organiz­ing principle of Middle Eastern ocietie . According to the Syrian ociologi t and noveli t Halim Barakat. "The family i the basic unit of ocial organization in traditional and contemporary Arab ociety. "I Nadia Hijab. in her Womanpower.2 de cribe "the Arab fam­ily" a "the key to ociety." The general accuracy of the ob ervation about the centrality of the family in Arab ocietie would eem to be indi putable. The family i often figured a a biological model for hu­man reproduction and u tenance; it i lauded as a "natural" prototype of gr up linkage. cohe ion. com­munity. And as Hijab point out. the debate over the family (and gender) h incre ingly become a public one. But. with orne notable exception • the central importance of the family in tudie of the Middle Ea t has remained an axiomatic claim. often made but far Ie often y tematically inve tigated or developed. I olated aspect of the "traditional" Arab family have been the object of orne cholarly inve tigation: e­lected marriage pattern (mo t n tably. bint 'amm or patrilineal parallel cou in marriage ); the eclu ion. veiling. and circumci ion of women; the role of (an often e entialized) I lam in the con titution and work­ing of the family. The e a pect of family life. how­ever. are mo t comprehen ible in the context of the working of the family a a wh Ie and of the larger communitie in which the family i ituated. If "the family i the basic unit of ocial organization in con­temporary Arab ociety." in fact "the key to ociety." the family i better understood through an inve tigation of it pecific definition and working at particular hi torical moment and in particular place -a well a in the change in tho e definition and working over time. 3

It wa in thi context of inquiry and preliminary exchange that a group of nine chola of the family (in the Middle Ea t and el ewhere) gathered at the Univer ity of Wi con in. Madi on. on April 16 and

• Mary Layoun i i t profe r of c mp:1l'lltive literature t the University of Wi onsin. Madi n.

84\ ITEM

17. 1993. for an exploratory work hop. "Re­Figuring the Family in the Middle Ea t. pon ored by the Joint Committee on the Near and Middle Ea t and the Univer ity of Wi con in Kemper Knapp Fund.4 Encouraged to pre ent work-in-progre or to draw out the practical and theoretical implication of pa t re earch a they aw fit. the work hop pre enter engaged the participant in productive and ometime di tinctly divergent debate. The workshop ught to include the pecific working of the "family in the Middle Ea ttt a a ocial and political in titution and a a cultural repre entation or trope at particular hi torical juncture . Work hop participant hared a common a umption about the fact that ociopolitical­political practice of the family and it di cur ive configuration are mutually engendering. The rhetorical definition and u e and the practical working of the family. it con truction of gender. the mutually formative interaction of the family with the tate and with other ocial communitie • are crucial arena for diver e conte tation and con olida­tion in figuring the family. "Re-Figuring the Family" al 0 attempted to include (or. to borrow a phra e from another JCNME project. to "bridge the divide" between) recent re earch on and theorizing of the European and American family and that of the family in the Middle Ea t. For in governmental program • in academic re earch. in popular debate. the contempo­rary impact of European notion of the family-and at lea t implicitly. of notion of the "modem" and f "tradition" in which the family i made to play an important if overdetermined role-ha been and continue to be ub tantial. whether a exemplary model or a utter difference.

In addition. then. to an in i tence on the impor­tance of both the ocial practice and rhetorical c n truction of the family in the Middle Ea t. ne of the premi e of the work hop' organization wa the pertinence of re earch. hi t rie • and theoretical recon ideration of the family in the United State and Europe. And although n little part of thi w rk on the family ha di tingui hed between the family in "modem" indu trial ocietie and in "traditional" ocietie • the ambiguitie of the e di tinction are ignificantly challenged for their predication on

noti n of the inex rable pr gre ion of the family and ociety toward (a valorized model of) autonomy, independence. and affectivity. The impli tic di tinction of the e model are arguably beginning to hift under the force of femini t critique and ther

OLUME 47, NUMBfR 4

Page 13: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

critical work on the family a a general category. The di tinction, then, between "We tern" and "non-We tern" ocietie and between "modem" and "traditional" ocietie, while duly and often noted for the tremendou power of it "imaginary geography" and for it literal con equence , did not go unchal­lenged at the work hop. And yet the i ue at take in figuring the family from variou intellectual, political, and geographic location were con picuou enough to bring into clearer relief the hared concern of tho e of u who do work on the Middle Ea t. The work-hop, then, included, participant who poke on the

family and gender in Lebanon, in the Ottoman Empire and the Levant, in Turkey, in Germany and the United State , and among tran national elite Arab communitie .

The family in the Middle Ea t i , of cour e, not ingular nor are the ocietie in which the family i

embedded. Thu , the work hop focu ed on the range of difference among plural notion and practice of familie and ocietie in the Middle Ea t. Thi range of difference wa ituated hi torically in a ugge tive pre entation on I lamic juridical-legal di cour e on the family from the court record of three town of 17th and 18th century Ottoman Syria and Pale tine. The extent to which, even in roughly the arne time period, and within the juridical framework of I lam, there wa ub tantial divergence of legal opinion and deci ion wa perhap urpa ed by the extent to which the ocial, religiou , and political concern informing tho e 17th and 18th century opinion and deci ion diverge from contemporary notion of the family, gender, and I lam. Thi revi ionary hi tory of n tion and practice of the family in the Middle Ea t, ba ed on court record and hi torical document t long overlooked, ugge t that I lamic law on the family and gender i far from monolithic or unchang­ing. But rather, gender i a ymbolic con truction by Mu lim intellectual and juri t ; it i a dynamic ocial relation hip in a pecific hi torical context in which marriage wa conceived of a the ba ic building block of ociety. What might appear to be the elf-evident importance of con ulting the (often ample) hi torical record and of drawing from tho e pa t account -a well a from the range of contemporary practice of the family-i not quite 0 elf-evident if the general paucity of hi torical work on the family in the Middle Ea t i taken into acc unt. The ongoing work of each of the work hop participant i a counter to thi lack

DE EMBER 1993

of attention to both the hi torie and the contempo­rary ocial practice of the family.

The politic of marriage practice of the tran na­tional Arab elite, pecifically of the wealthy elite in Dama cu , and their almo t wildly integrative wedding practice reiterate the divergence of notion and practice of gender, marriage, and the family in the Middle Ea t. From thi point of departure, the ca e wa made for not only recording the local rhetoric of family and gender (i .e., for an ethnogra­phy that accept local accounts at face value) but al 0

and imultaneou Iy for the analy i of the working of that rhetoric and the practice of tho e di cour e . The over-arching que tion ugge ted in thi context were tho e of the proce e of gendering per se, of how people make known to them elve and other their ex, gender, exuality, cla ,and age; of the way in which inequaJitie within and between familie are experienced; of the con truction of value in gendered relation hip ; and of the production of cultural tyle and ta teo

The way in which local familial network of agency and relation hip are integral to the working of the tate and citizen hip were a counterpoint to the m bile di course and practice of the tran national elite. For, in the former in tance, familial network of "connective elfhood" -kin hip y tern -in an urban working-clas neighborhood in Lebanon were tendered a the ba i for claim to the right of citizen hip. Right were experienced a deriving from familial relation hip ; kin hip provided acce to right . The family (member and network) and the tate, then, are not only implicated in one another a general tructure to local body; they are engaged in a reciprocally dependent con truct. Thi reciprocity al 0 characterize the relation hip between pecific family members a well a within the overall "imagined community" of the family. The rhetoric of family and kin hip i not only figuratively connected to the rhetoric of other kind of political community; they are literally interlinked. Thi operative paradigm of ' the right of the citizen and family member" ugge t it ignificant difference from the European tate/citizen model in which-a vexed a that model wa from it incep­tion-right adhere to the latter by virtue of her "po e ive individuali m" and the boundarie there f, of her po ition a property holder. S

The ten ion between European and Middle Ea tern notion of the family and of gender, and in the pecific of the interaction between family and

ITEM I 5

Page 14: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

ociety, between cultural repre entation and ociopo­litical-political dynamic , informed the work hop from beginning to end. The opening pre entation on the engendering of notion of dome ticity and the family in Turki h folktale and the exchange which it generated brought immediately to the foreground the complexitie of relation hip between culture and ociety- and, in thi in tance in particular, of

in tilling notion of gender and the family a an alway ambiguou endeavor, carcely ever entirely ucce ful, carcely ever utterly without effect. In thi

context, the r Ie of "orientali m" and of the legal, political, and cultural framework of imperiali m on the family in the Middle Ea t al 0 inter ect with local notion and practice (in thi in tance, of contemporary Turki h folklore).

Thi confrontation with the political context , how­ever mediated of concept of the family wa ub e­quently re- ituated n different terrain in the context of the cold war implication of German literary at­tempt to rethink the family. The comparative politic of that rethinking and of articulating alternative no-ti n of family and gender and of their relation to the tate, reiterated the ugge tive ten i n that contin­ued thr ughout the work hop. For the theoretical i -ue at take were ugge tive not only for rethinking

the German family but al 0 for rethinking familie el ewhere. The analy i of the German context( } and their literary text , drawing from contemporary Euro­pean femini t theorizing of gender and the family, marked a de ire for potentially po t-colonial (and pot-cold war) analy e and alternative practice of the family beyond northern Europe. Thi de ire wa further marked by a con ideration of alternative exu­alitie and the family in Germany, and the expediency of adopting the hetero exual (and nuclear) family model a the appr priate frame for gay and Ie bian communitie -a -family. In thi di cu ion. a in that of the "narci i tic or liberatory" opening generated by the often and anxiou ly cited "breakdown" of the American nuclear family, the de ire ~ r alternative to already articulated rhetoric and practice of the "We tern" (heterexual. nuclear) family wa pro-n unced. In the context of the United State • and the lament of orne that femini m. homo exuality. and

iological bia are undermining the family - a it wa formerly defined- in the U.S., the concluding pre entati n propo ed the redefiniti n of the family a 'y tern of love and domination. The egmented fam­ily. characterized by it "di per ion f cultural inter-

6\1TEM

e t ," and by the availability of eparate and di crete culture for different member of the unit, mark an opening in the hi t ry of the family.

A econd work hop will inve tigate comparative hi torie and ethnographie of gender and the family (and the tate) in Japan, India, Turkey and Southeast A ia. Sub equent to the two work h p and drawing on the i ue rai ed in both of them-the point of conjuncture and departure in comparative con ider­ation of gender and the family-a final international conference i projected.

The participant and the organizer of the fir t work hop6 concurred in the hope that uch compara­tive forum will enable intere ted cholar to collaborate on new comparative re earch agendas, invigorating tudie both of the family in the Middle Ea t and of familie acro the globe. •

Endnot

I. "The Arab Family and the Challenge of ocial Tran -fonnation." In Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. ed .• Womell alld the Family ill the Middle Ea t: New Voices ojClumge. Au -tin: University of Texas Pre • 19 5, pp. 27-48.

2. Womallpower: The Arab Debate 011 Womell at Work. Cambridge niversity Pre . • 198 .

3. One of the notion that infonned the organization of the work hop it elf wa the dubiou reference and ambiva­lent implication of "Arab ociety" or "the Arab family" in the ingular.

4. Work hop participant included Sarah Ati , Univer­ity of Wi con in . Madi on: "Dome. ticity In tilled: Telling

Tale, in the Mirror of Culture" ; Karen Jankow kyo niver ity of Wi on in. M di on: "Thinking 'Family' in

We t Gennany: Some Cold War Implication "; Suad Joeph. University of California. Davi : "Right and Citizenship Inter ection of Peronhood. Patriarchy. and the tate in Lebanon"; Nancy Lindi fame . University of London: "Proce e of Gendering in Tran national Arab Elite Familie " ; Magda Mueller. Stanford University: "The Dialectic of Family Life: Gay and Le bian Con truc-tion " ; Mark Po ter. Univer ity of California. Irvine: " Narci i m or Liberation: The Family Today"; oraya al-Torki . American Univer ity in Cairo: "Concluding Remark "; Judith Tucker. Georgetown University: '" lami Law. Gender. and the Family: A Hi torical Apprai , al. "

5. To gender the pronoun, of citizen and property hold­ers in thi way i • however. not to forget their very different gendering in. for e ample. the Fren h or . . revolution of th late I th century - the effort of women like Olympe de G uge or Mary Woll tonecraft notwith tanding.

6. oraya al-Torki and Mary Layoun.

V OL I E 47 . MBER4

Page 15: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Bridging the Divide by Joel S. Migdal and John T.S. Keeler*

For ocial cienti t like u , weaned on the grand theoretical cherne of the 1950 and 1960 , and then trained in the middle-level theorie that followed in the 1970 and 1980 , the recent challenge to comparative tudie have been un ettling. The arne force that have et ethnic group upon ethnic group in the political arena have al '0 chipped away at the conceptual foundation of cro -cultural com pari on in the academic phere. That foundation wa rooted in the perva ivene and coherence of an explicitly or implicitly acknowledged modern global y tern. Within the boundarie of uch a y tern, the thread of modernity allowed for the exploration of imilaritie and the pondering over difference acro a wide variety of ca e . But a the y tern expanded to incorporate people in the far reache of the world, it al 0 eemed to implode, cracking the foundation of commonality that underlay comparative analy i . Mar hall Berman write that the expanding modern public eventually" hatter into a multitude of fragment, peaking incommen urable private language . "I

The wall around the e private language , in the eye of many, are as difficult to cale academically a politically. Barrier between tho e re earching different region , e pecially acro the North-South divide, have become more impo ing. Through it all, our own work on France Britain, and the United

tate (Keeler) and I rael, the Pale tinian , and other ca e in the South (Migdal) continued to benefit from our interaction. Focu ing on que tion of tate- ociety relation , and particularly the ability of government to effect reform , we tea ed new wrinkle out of our ca e by holding them up to each other. Our conver-ation were informal and, like many other cholar,

we learned about imilaritie between our ca e more by chance than by de ign.

We began to a k if chance might be replaced with orne "calculated erendipity" through a project that

• Joel MIgdal i, profc or of mtemational tudi at the Henry M. Jack on ,hool of Intern ti nal tudlc . University of Wa hington . and haIr of the Joint Committee n the ar and Mlddl Ea t. John T ..

Keeler i a. sociat profe r of political ien at the University of Wa hmgton.

I . far.hall Berman. All That I olid M~/1l Into Air: Th~ Experiena of {"duntry ( cw Yor),,:: Penguin B k. 19 2). p. 17.

would bring together other pair of cholar like our elve to think elf-con ciou ly about comparative analy i . Our immediate aim wa to induce people re earching different region to explore each other' way of thinking about problem . On a more ambitiou level , we a ked if the current academic fragmentation i not, at lea t to orne degree, rever ible. Could ocial cienti t break down orne of the in ularity gripping academia, could they cale the wall around the private language that had proliferated? With tho e que tion and goal in mind, we a ked the Joint Committee on the Near and Middle Ea t and the SSRC' Tran national Competi­tion to pon or our project, "Bridging the Divide."

crutinizing comparative analysis

For the committee, the project addre ed orne key i ue that had bedeviled re earch on the region. The attack on Orientali m by Edward Said and others had ent hock wave through Middle Ea t tudie ,

bringing into que tion the legitimacy of the dominant mode of re earch in the field. Implicit and explicit compari on that Orientali t had made between Europe and the Middle Ea t, the critique went, had badly mi repre ented life in the region, e entiaJizing and fundamentally di torting it complexity and ubtlety. Two new mode of re earch, decon truction­

i m and public choice theorie , had made con ider­able inroad among humani t and ocial cienti t intere ted in the Middle Ea t; and both had battered the legitimacy of comparative analy i in very different way . Decon tructioni t had que tioned the very exi tence of a tructural ba i for compari on, while public choice and rational choice theorie , in quite the oppo ite fa hion, had 0 univer alized human action a to quetion altogether the ju tifica­tion for area tudie a a foundation for comparative analy i .

The de ign of the project wa imple. In a erie of meeting ,pair of cholar working on imilar ub tantive topic but on different region of the

world analyzed the language, idea , and approache that underlay the work of their de ignated partner. 2

2 The pair.. in luded Wilham Sewell (Unaver..lty of ChIcago) and Elli. Goldberg (University of W hmgton); D niel Chirot and Ronald Jepper-

n (both of the University of W hingt n); Ehzabeth Perry (Univer ity of Cali~ mla. B rkeley) nd Chari. Bergqul t ( nave Ity of W hinglon): John Keeler and Atul Kohh (Prin eton University); Geoff Eley (Univer..i-

I ty of MIchIgan) and Hun Ilamo~lu-lnan (Ankara T chnl al Univer.ity);

ITE ~ /87

Page 16: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

They then related what they found in the other' work to their own conception of the problem. The individual e ion prodded cholars to explore the benefit and limit coming out of uch compari on , to ee if they could gain fre h per pective through their encounter . In Seattle (October 19-20, 1991) and Lyon, France (March 22-23, 1993), we al 0 had two larger meeting , together with the Joint Commit­tee on the Near and Middle Ea t, to explore orne of the ramification of what emerged from the pairing , asking what ort of epi temological and practical ba e may exi t today for comparative analy i .

The current challenge to comparative analy i have come in the wake of a kind of golden age for comparative re earch in the decade after World War n. Writer uch a Talcott Parson, David Ea ton, and Gabriel Almond, implicitly drawing from the European and North American experience, had attempted to identify univer al function in what appeared to be wildly different political and ocial y tern . The mark of the period wa the willingne

to engage in bold compari on de igned to produce univer ally applicable generalization about human behavior. The SSRC et up it Committee on Comparative Politic a early a 1954, bringing together Europeani ts with tho e tudying Bunna, India, and Latin America. Five years later, Edward Shil and hi colleague at the Univer ity of Chicago inaugurated the Committee for the Comparative Study of New Nation . Often u ing We tern in titution and proce e a implicit tandard ,thi committee had a deci ive impact on the development of general concept and theorie encompa ing the contemporary ocial and political experience of people out ide the

Wet. By the late 1960 and early 1970 , a new genera­

tion of ocial cienti t began to aband n the grand theorie , attacking their overambition and their penchant for queezing highly diver e ca e into rigid categorie . But the middle-range theorie that the e new re earcher championed continued to affinn the tradition of broad comparative analy i . Many of their

Re I K 00 (Universily of W hington) and Willfried Spohn (DAAD Fellow 1:1 the University of w hingt n); Kiren Ch udhry and Gregory Nobl (both of the University of California. Berkeley); Judilh Gold lein and Nina Halpern (both of lan~ rd Universily); and leven Heyd m nn (SSRC) nd John tephen (Unive ily of Nonh Carolina). A cI mg roundtabl in luded tal by Eli beth Lon uen (In liM de Recher-che ur I M nde Arabe Contemporain. Ly n). Elizabeth Perry. nd Re I K 00.

88\ ITEM

work u ed detailed hi torical analy i to create i ue- pecific comparative generalization within region or even, at time, acro region.

It i only in recent years that critici m, coming from a variety of ource ,ha been effectively directed at the very enterpri e of compari on. Rigorou po itivi tic ocial cienti t have de paired at orne of the eriou method logical dilemma involved in cro -cultural compari on. Many of the e problem were ummed up in Giovanni Sartori' phra e , the "traveling problem' and "conceptual tretching. ' Certainly, i ue concerning the ab ence

of adequate control variable are one that afflict all orts of cro -cultural comparative analy i . The e

critici m put a methodological damper on effort at com pari on acro region.

The Western bias

Perhap no critici m proved more damning to both the univer al and middle-level theorie , and to the comparative re earch that grew out of them, than the charge that they were laden with a We tern bent. The inherent bia wa often hidden in the fonnali m of ocial cientific theorie . Even the revival of fonnal

univer ali tic approache in the 1990 , largely in the fonn of public choice theorie ,ha been (rightly) ubjected to uch critici m. It i an illu ion to

believe, Kiren Chaudhry noted at one of our e ion, that a universal theory could have cau al idea free of n nnative context. And that nonnative content often came directly out of We tern experience.

Other politie and ocietie in Africa A ia, Ea tern Europe, and Latin America were frequently held up to a tandard derived from the We t, becoming "not yet' ocietie -n t yet democratic, not yet indu trial, not yet civil, and 0 on. The teleological element wa tr nge t in the early grand theorie , but it wa not an

in ignificant i ue in the middle-level theorie , where compari on continued to be of "other" area with the We t. Social cience reinforced the uniquene of the We t by mea uring how much others departed from nonn e tabli hed in We tern ocietie . The compari on coming out of uch theorie not only di torted the portrayal of ocietie in Africa, A ia, and Latin America; they tended, too, to uppre anomalie in We tern countrie them elve . European and North American ocietie looked exaggeratedly civil, modem, and ordered when held up again t the • not yet" ocietie ut ide the We t.

VOLUME 47. N MBER 4

Page 17: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Po t-moderni t , anti-Orientali t , and decon truc­tioni t extended the critici m of the We tern bia in comparative writing. Tran portation of concept from one ociety to another run the ri k of impo ing the re earcher on other or of ordering the live of others in particular way . The underlying que tion , a Re at Ka aba put it at our concluding meeting, wa whether ocial cience c uld have non-hegemonic curio ity.

Decon truction a a method al 0 put other barriers in the path of compari on. After all , as Elizabeth Perry noted in the arne e ion, if one decon truct too much, nothing look comparable. The pecter of that conclu ion - that n thing look comparable - proved to be at the heart of the project ' concern.

Our erie of dialogue acro the divide did n t di mi or trivialize the e critici m . Nor did they uncover orne methodological breakthrough to overcome all the old problem . We could not re tore the unified di cour e of the grand the rie . A William Sewell noted for hi own field of labor hi tory, the grand narrative ha di integrated . And, we can add , even the middle-level narrative that cut aero region have become badly frayed.

If, indeed, the narrative that were the girding for comparative analy i in the po twar years are no longer relevant, what ort of compari on are po ible? What can we do when we compare? The palflng ugge ted that the mo t tringent condition , po ed first by David Hume and more recently by critic a ailing the lack of rigor in many cro -cultural compari on , need to be relaxed. It i inevitable, a in aIm t all non-laboratory condition , that uch compari on cannot meet the tandard of adequate control variable . Even 0 , the tudy of human behavior i ultimately a comparative enter-pri e; topping our compari on at cultural boundarie allow method logy to dictate the ub tance of intellectual inquiry (rather than the oppo ite).

The bounded conte t

If com pari on cannot be abandoned altogether, the e ion al 0 argued again t the oppo ite tendency.

Complex cultural and ocial condition in different etting cann t be c llap ed into ea ily w rkable

categorie to be compared with one an ther with ut doing gro inju tice t the phen mena being analyzed. The public choice appr ach , popular currently, differ ub tantially from the grand the rie of the 1950 . But, in it economi t approach , it t

DF EMBER 1993

eek to e tabli h univer ally valid behavioral regularitie , collap ing diver e and ubtle phenomena into convenient weeping categorie . Although there certainly wa no ea y unanimity in the project, many participant felt that Middle Ea t and other area tudie hold the promi e of compari n in a tempo­

rally and regionally bounded context , allowing for the explorati n of imilaritie while till appreciating key difference in culture and ocial organization.

A bounded context implie that cholar cann t imply i late pecific phenomena for com pari on but

mu t locate the expre ion of tho e phenomena in the br ader c pe of ociety and culture . Per ua ive comparative generalization come only if cholar have a healthy re pect for what the anthropologi t Manning a h ha called "clo ely viewed crucial in tance .. -c e tudie reflecting the r tedne of the cholar in the ociety.3 In that en e, at lea t, fragmentation ha the alutary effect of making the re earcher en itive to the "private language .. that currently are 0 rife. The que tion i if and how cholar can help put Humpty Dumpty together again

by recreating a ba i of commonality nece ary for c mpari on . The project did not (and could n t) ucceed in giving a full an wer to that que tion. But

we did find that, at lea t in orne in tance , the encounter by two (or more) uch r ted ch lar acro area e tabli hed ufficient c mmonality to open new way of viewing one' own ca e .

Thi ort of compari on erve to illuminate hidden dimen ion and to generate new que ti n . It ugge t imilaritie and di imilaritie, without claiming the

contextual unity needed to e tabli h univer al law of human behavior. Thi per pective wa reiterated in the concluding roundtable of the pr ~ect. The tran port of concept from one ociety to another, while creating all ort of methodological pr blem , al 0 generate new an malie . Not nly doe it highlight diver ity, it place the phen menon being tudied in a new context and force new que tion .

Ju t as de Tocqueville' French c nceptual baggage hocked American into confronting i ue uch a

the tyranny of democracy, comparative encounter acro region today imilarly open new window on old topic . Encounter acr regional divide prod cholar to relativize concept and ituation by

comparing them to in tance el ewhere. That

' Manning a h. Til Ow/drOll of £llmicily ill IIII' Modl'rI! World. (Chi ago: Univerliity of hi a 0 Pre • 19 9). p. viii.

ITE 1 I 9

Page 18: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

relativization mu t be a two-way treet. It i a important for tho e tudying Europe and North America a for tho e tudying A ia or Africa.

Our pairing differed ub tantially on the ea e of engaging in uch mutual relativization. In certain field -labor tudie i a prime example- cholar working on region a di parate a the Middle Ea t, France, and China all aw them 'elve working again t the arne backdrop. All were intimately aware of the now crumbling grand narrative by Marx. And all-Perry (China), Charle Bergqui t (Latin Ameri­ca), Sewell (France), and Elli Goldberg (Egypt)­were in pired by the "bottom up" perspective of the "new labor hi tory" launched by E. P. Thomp on and other. Indeed, in a cia ic ca e of cro -regional pollination, Perry' re earch on worker in Shanghai attempted to apply per pective of the new labor hi tory to th Chine e ca e.

Encounter acro the divide

In other in tance , much Ie of a comm n referent exi ted. At time, cholar working on variou area had fundamentally different ba e of knowledge on many ub tantive que tion . No eminal work exi ted that could erve a tarting point for di cu ion, and the member of the pairing read fundamentally different literature. Beyond that, what we might term the relative den ity of the literature on particular region acted to hape different ort of re earch fr m place to place. Gregory oble' work on bu ine -government relation and economic policy in the exten ively documented ca e of Japan and Taiwan focu ed on firm-level analy i . Chaudhry, in contra t, found that th relative paucity of literature on her ca e (Yemen and Saudi Arabia) nece itated a focu on the ectoral level, even for th contemporary period. Their encounter acro the divide did not have the arne unified di cour e a that found among the labor ·cholar. onethele ' , it did expo e each to different way of a king and addre, -ing que ti n in their own region .

In all our pairing , even in tho e without a comm n di cour e, other element , n tably intellec­tual tyle and language, were remarkably alike. Thi imilarit)' opened the way for intere ting cro -

illuminati n but, at the arne time, pointed to other pitfall and divide . At the concluding roundtable, Eli abeth Longuene e commented that all the pairing were of United tate r U.S.-trained

9O\lTE 1

re earcher and to her, a French cholar, the di cu -ion often eemed remarkably clo ed and homoge­

neou . Even when U.S.-trained ch lar felt deeply divided among them elve by differing methodologi­cal approache , an out ider uch a Longuene e found a trong identit), in intellectual tyle, which ea e the friction of an encounter and allow for an exploration of imilaritie and difference . Longue-ne e believed, for example, that however much they felt they di agreed, ina Halpern, writing on Stalini t idea in China, and Judith Gold tein, commenting on the impact of idea on U.S. trade policy, hared a c mm n intellectual approach. B th tended to u e the notion of "idea" in an in trumental fa hion. Other, uch a teven Heydemann on liberalization in yria

and John Stephen on capitali m and dem racy tended to rei), on "model" a the mean to make en e of their material. French cholar, on the other

hand, are more likely to refer to "idea" in cultural term and to rely on "repre entation" rather than model. The challenge, then, can be to overcome a double divide: not only re earchers working on different region encountering one another, but re earcher from different region alld working on different region encountering one another.

The i ue of a cultural divide between re earcher al '0 proved to be an i ue in a number of the paired e ion, a participant reported on their interaction

with indigen u cholar in the region they re-earched. Even within the arne ub tantive area, the

experience of the ch lar differed con. iderably. For Bergqui t, for example, the work of Latin American labor hi torian erved a an in piration in both c ntent and method and led him to emulate "indige­nou tyle" in orne of hi own work. For ewell, it wa taken ~ r granted that work b)' French cholar were the central basi from which hi own re earch would begin. Perry, however, found that the work of official communi t labor hi torian. wa n t the di 'cour e he ought. Indeed, her effort t u e "new labor hi tory" focu ing on the rank-and-file wa looked upon a 'kance by the Chine e labor hi tori an , who que tioned her reliance on the view of p rly informed worker . That ort of divide between indigen u and out ide re earcher inhibit yet an ther kind of comparati e encounter, ince

ut ider inevitably bring their own cultural experi-ence a a mirr r to hold up to the iety in which they are re ·earching.

OL 1f 47. N lBER 4

Page 19: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

A common language?

Like intellectual tyle, the u e of language in our pairing to de cribe phenomena and in titution acro region wa remarkably con i tent, even when a common intellectual framework wa ab ent. Whether one wa talking of China or Venezuela, France or India, phra e uch a "working cia , .. " tate," "parliament," and "democracy" appeared over and over again. If indeed the ordering of ocial relation differed from place to place, a the participant found, how could the arne word be u ed to de cribe differently con tituted event in variou place? Doe the u e of common language facilitate compari on or mask important difference ?

A word uch a "liberal," for example, which date back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centurie , took on variou layer of meaning through the year in England and part of Europe. In it early incarna­tion it de ignated tho e pur uit , the art and the cience , worthy of a free man and clearly referred to

people of higher ocial tatu . The embeddedne of the word in a particular hi tory i not a ea ily tran po ed a the word it elf. Are we really talking about comparable phenomena, then, when we peak of liberali m in England and, ay, I rael?

One way to avoid uch i ue and facilitate com pari on i to do what Gabriel Almond and G. Bingham Powell did: invent a new language acro lingui tic-hi torical divide. So we have "intere ·t aggregating" group in tead of political partie and "intere t articulation" in tead of lobbying. 4 The difficulty with uch formulation ' i that ocial cience deal with the di cour e of daily ocial relation and

. Se • for ex mple. th Ir te'ltbook. Gabri I A 1m nd nd G. Bingham Po\\,ell. Jr .. ed .• Comj'l(lratiH' Politics A Dew'lopm mal Approoch (Bo ton: Littl . Brown. 1966). ch . 4 and 5 AI 0 ee their t xtboo!'; Comparath'~ PolitI Today: A World ~'it'I\ ' (Glcnvic\\'. IL:

ott. Fore. m n. 19 ). founh edItIon. p. 9 .

DE(E 1BER 1993

uch invented term are not a part of that di cour e. The re ult ha been that cholar have been very reluctant to tray from the word u ed by tho e they are tudying. Both the Briti h and the I raeli peak of their liberal partie , although the word may have very different connotation in the two ca e . Different hi torica! layer of meaning of the arne word in variou etting, to be ure, cau e ine capable problem , but problem that are be t dealt with through caution in dealing with clo ely viewed ca e rather than abandonment of com pari on altogether.

Encounter of cholar tudying different region do not olve the numerou problem inherent in com pari on. They do not and cannot e tabli h univer ally valid behavioral regularitie ,a the grand theorie of the 1950 ought to do or public choice theory today till aim to achieve. But through their clo ely viewed ca e and the ro tedne of the ob erver in the culture, they can affirm the depth and complexity of their ca e in way that tho e theorie could not. At the arne time, uch encounter move u toward a reaffirmation of the commonality of the modem global public, the foundation for comparative analy i .

For academic , the challenge i to pierce the wall of eparate literature, varying intellectual tyle, and different audience . We cannot clo e our eye to the problem generated by compari on, but by the arne mea ure we cannot imply abandon comparative analy i and the illumination and cro -fertilization that occur through it. If we do, we only ha ten the di integration of our common di cour e, widening the divide between u and con igning u , in Berman' word, to "living in windowle monad, far more iolated than we need be."~ •

~ Berman. All That I olid M~/IJ Imo Air. p. 34 .

ITBl 191

Page 20: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Current Activities at the Council

ew Staff Appointments

ARUN P. ELH CE ha been named co-program director to the Committee on International Peace and Security, effective January 3, 1994. Mr. Elhance received a Ph.D. in economic geography/ regional cience from Bo ton Univer ity (1987) and an M.A. in operation re earch fr m Lan-ca ter Univer ity (U.K., 1973).

Mr. Elhance ha taught and lectured at variou universitie and in titute in the United State and India. Mo t recently, at the Univer ity of IIIinoi , Urbana­Champaign, where he ha been an a i tant profe or of ec nomic and political geography, Mr. Elhance developed c ur e on quantitative technique ~ r arm contr I and di armament, geopolitical conflict in uth and Ea t A ia, and the geography of international and dome tic conflict. In 1991-92, he held a fellow hip at the U.S. In titute of Peace where he conducted re earch on the potential for inter- tate conflict and coopera­tion over hared tran boundary re ource in arid and em i-arid region . Hi book, Hydropolitic in the Third World, will be publi hed by the USIP in 1994. Al 0 forthc ming in 1994 i When the Japane e Come to Town: Location. Linkages and Impact of Diamond Star Motors. (with Margaret Chapman). ba ed on a tran -Atlantic c mparative re earch project headed by Mr. Elhance.

Previou publication include .. A Ge graphical Perspective," in Stephen P. Cohen. editor,

92\ ITEM

Nuclear Proliferation in South Asia: The Pro pect for Arms Control (We tview, 1991), and .. A Conceptual Framework for the Study of Third World Arm Production." in Mana Chatterji and Linda Rennie Forcey, editor, Di armament. Economic Com'er-ion and the Management of

Peace (Praeger, 1992). In addition, he ha contributed to many journal and to the "Op­Ed" page of national and internati nal new paper .

Mr. Elhance bring to the Council a multidi ciplinary and multicultural background a well a the knowledge of contemporary i ue in ec n mic development, the local impact of global economic and political re tructur­ing, and intemational ecurity and peace, an experti e gained through field work, con ultancy. and travel in nearly 30 countrie .

Another appointment to the Committee on International Peace and Security i ROBERT L TH 1

who join the Council a a program officer. Mr. Latham expect t receive hi Ph.D. in the pring of 1994 fr m the New School for ocial Re earch. Hi di ertation i entitled "The Liberal Moment: Plurali m, Order and ecurity in the Po t-World War II Period." Mr. Latham earned hi M.A. (19 I) from the Univer ity of Chicago and received hi B.A. (1978) at Pomona College.

Prior t j ining the Council, Mr. Latham erved a intructor in international relation at Eugene Lang College of the New Sch I ~ r ocial Re earch. Hi re earch intere t include

I international collaboration, the ecurity dimen ion of interna­

tional political economic rela­tion and the impact of nonn , culture, and regime-type on international relation .

Hi article, "Democracy and War-Making: Locating the International Liberal Context," wa publi hed in the ummer 1993 i ue of the London School of Economic journal, Millell­Ilium. Mr. Latham i a recipient of the 1993 Carl Beck Award, given by the International Studie A ociation for the be t graduate tudent paper in all categorie of

international tudie . RICH RD R. PETER ON ha

joined the Council a program officer to the Committee for Re earch on the Urban Under­cia . He received hi M.A. (1978) and Ph.D. (1984) in ociology fr m Columbia

Univer ity. Prior to hi arrival at the Council, Mr. Peter on wa the acting director of the Center for Applied Social Science Re earch at New York Univer ity, where he al 0 taught graduate re earch method cour e in the ociology department .

Mr. Peter n' re earch intere t include gender, work and family; inequality and tratifica­tion; re earch method ; and quantitative analy i . He i particularly intere ted in the effect of family di ruption on income inequality. Hi book, Women. Work and Divorce (SUNY Pre • 1989), u e national longitudinal data to evaluate how women cope with the ec nomic hard hip that accompanie divorce.

VOLU IE 47. N MBER 4

Page 21: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

Mr. Peter on ha al 0 con­ducted a tudy, funded by the National Science Foundation, to examine child care arrangement of dual-earner couple . In hi current work he i addre ing controversie in re earch on the economic con equence of divorce.

African Archive and Museums Project: 1993 Awards

The African Archive and Mu eum Project of the Joint Committee on African Studie awarded 15 grant at it Augu t election meeting in Johanne -

burg, South Africa. Now in it third year, the project wa e tabli hed with fund from the Ford Foundation to upport effort to con erve, catalogue, and exhibit the continent' cultural and hi torical re ource . It operate a an annual mall grant competition under the direction of an international election commit­tee. * Following are the 1993 award:

• Re earch and Documentation Cemer, Eritrea. To con erve endangered material pertaining to the hi tory of the newly-indepen­dent Eritrea. Many item in the collection are in a fragile tate, having been buried underground a a afeguard again t the ravage

el ction commlllee members include Chri traud Geary. Eliot Eli fon Photographic Archive. • tional Mu um of African Art . the mlth. nian In tllullon; Duduzil Mba· n}i. University of Bot wana Library; Mo­hamed Mbodj. University Cheikh Ante Diop and Columbia University; amuel jovana. ,'atl nal Archlv of Zimb bwe; John

l'ni\er.ityof airobi ; and Doran Ro • Fowler ,lu um of Cultural Hi tory. OIversity of California. Lo Angele .

o .(,EMBER 1993

I of civil war and government confi cation. The collection include material panning the Azumite era and Ottoman period through the pre ent day. Docu­ment are written in the official language of Tigrigna and Arabic a well a in Engli h and Italian.

• Fort Jesus Museum, Kenya. To rehabilitate the exhibition hall o a to relate the hi tory of the

Kenyan coa t in a clear and conci e manner. At pre ent, the exhibition hall give no context to the enca ed material , which include artifact from excavation in Fort Je u and other coa tal ite , a variety of ethnographic

material , and item from the wreck of a 17th-century Portu­gue e frigate that unk in the Fort Je u channel. The rede igned hall will addre the need of chool children and Swahili­peaker , two group that had

been overlooked when the hall wa fir t de igned.

• National Archive, Kenya. To microfilm Kenyan new paper dating from the 1980 to the pre ent. Invaluable chronicle of contemporary event , the new paper, including the Nation, the Standard, and the Kenya Time , are widely u ed by re earcher and reader from all walk of life. The re ult ha been exten ive wear and tear of poor quality new print. Microfilming will en ure that pre report on Kenyan political and cultural life remain acce ible.

• National Archive, Kenya. To publi h an archival guide on the admini trative hi tory of Kenya. The guide aim to provide background infonnation on the organization and development of government in titution . Such infonnation i e ential for

archivi t , who mu t organize record in hi tori cal perspective, and for re earcher , who will gain a y tematic under tanding of how archival cla ification have been created, u ed, and redrawn.

• Musee de l' Universite d'Antananarivo, Madagascar. To con erve and manage ethno­graphic collection . The mu e­urn' goal i to augment the care and acce ibility of it material, which are con idered to be among the fine t collection in the Indian Ocean region. The pennanent holding con i t of clo e to 1,000 object repre enting diver e area of re earch, including ethnology, hi tory, and mu icology.

• Arquivo do Patrimonio Cultural (ARPAC), Mozambique. For con ultancy vi it to other African archive to eek input in devi ing a long-range plan to trengthen archival ervice.

E tabli hed in 1983, ARPAC has ought to pre erve Mozambiquan

cultural patrimony de pite the difficultie as ociated with civil war. Current re earch and documentation effort focu on anthropology, lingui tic , literature, and ethnomu icology.

• Mobile Museum Service, Namibia. To upport a traveling mu eum program for Namibian chool children. The "mobile"

mu eum i a unique outreach program that eek to expo e rural population , e pecially children, to the richne of Namibian culture and hi tory. Among it function are upport of mall mu eum in rural area , aid for community initiative in develop­ing new mu eum , and training for teacher in the u e of mu eum a a local re ource.

• Museum Association (MAN), Namibia. To upport a work hop

ITEM / 93

Page 22: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

on policie for Namibian mu e­urn . Drawing on community and government input, the work hop aim to develop legi lation pertaining to the role of mu eum in education, technical training, collection and con ervation practice ,infonnation ervice, and environmental and cultural awarene . Participant will include local and vi iting mu eum profe ional a well a public official and community repre en­tative .

• Centre for Tran -African Studie , University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. To provide for the microfilming and con ervation of Arabic manu cript relating to the tran -Saharan area. The Centre maintain a repo itory of rare Arabic manu cript dating back a far a 1554. To date the e rare trea ure have been tored in folder and thu expo ed to tennite and other in ect which have led to exten ive damage.

• NationaL Museums Librarie , Nigeria. To complete the microfilming and con ervation of Arabic manu cript at the National Mu eum Library in Jo . E ential re ource on the ethnography and archeology of the I lamic area of northern Nigeria, the manu cript require urgent attention due to the brittle nature of their urface .

• Centre de Recherches et de Documentation du SenegaL (CRDS) , SenegaL. To upport the con ervation of photographic collection . CROS maintain an exten ive photographic collection con i ting of over 6,000 nega­tive . Much of the collection i inacce ible to the general public becau e the mu eum lack print for the majority of negative . Subject matter range from

94\ ITEM

repre entation of political and cultural event to tudie of coa tal people from Portugue e Guinea and the Ba ari .

• NationaL Archive and Mu eums, Seychelles. For the microfilming and con ervation of archival document . E tabli hed in 1964, the pennanent collection contain document that date back to the 1770 . Te tament to the Seychelle ' rich hi tory, the document are in need of con ervation.

• Mayibuye Centre, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. For the con ervation of the Eli Weinberg photographic collection and the cataloguing of the Robben I land paper . The Eli Weinberg collection i a unique vi ual record of black South African cultural and political life from the early 1940 to the late 1970 . The Robben I land paper contain account of the day-to-day life of political detainee ; part of the va t collection of hi torical papers in the Centre' po e ion, the papers have yet to be y tematically catalogued.

• Fort Hare Centre for CuLturaL Studies, Ulliver ity of Fort Hare, South Africa. For the creation of a repo itory of record of the liberation movement. Becau e Fort Hare i the olde t hi torically black university in Southern and Ea tern Africa, organization uch a the African National Congre , the Pan Africani t Congre ,the Black Con ciou ne Movement, and the Unity Movement of South Africa have cho en to hou e their record and memorabilia at it Centre for Cultural Studie . Thi grant will a i t effort to centralize the e material .

• NationaL Gallery, Zimbabwe. To create a computerized databa e

of the penn anent collecti n. The mu eum' pennanent collection contain over 3,000 art object and artifact ranging from hi torical to contemporary Zimbabwean culpture and pamtmg a well a Eur pean watercolo and engraving .

The Future of Research on the Former Soviet Union

In June 1993, the Joint Committee on the Soviet Union and It Succe or State (JCSSS) and the John on Foundation co pon ored a two-day meeting on the future of re earch on the fonner Soviet Union at the Wing pread Conference Center in Racine, Wi con in. The meeting wa prompted by a concern that the collap e of the Soviet Union produced many daunting intellec­tual challenge for cholar in a variety of di cipline . The e challenge rai e fundamental que tion concerning the defini­tion of fruitful re earch que tion , appropriate method of inquiry, the organization of re earch, and the appropriate training of peciali t on the region within

the di cipline . The e concern are felt by the academic commu­nity, national organization like the Social Science Re earch Council that upport advanced re earch, other agencie and foundation that fund re earch and training, and policymaker .

Participant at the meeting included peciali t on the former Soviet Union, leading cholar from other area and academic di cipline , practitioners involved in creating and implementing policy, and foundation officer . Conference participant were

VOLUME 47. Nu tBER 4

Page 23: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

asked to comment pecifically on the following topic :

• Core re earch i ue, method , and opportunitie pre ented by the problem of economic and political reform in the Soviet ucce or tate

• Opportunitie for comparative rudy and theory development

• Opportunitie and training requirements for applied policy re earch or technical a i tance

• Problem of acce and ethic in the conduct of re earch

• Training need of graduate and po tgraduate cholar in the po t-Soviet field

• Relation hip between area pecialization and di ciplinary

concern • Areas for and problem rai ed

by collaborative re earch between U. S. cholar and cholar from the ucce or tate of the Soviet Union

• The role of funding and regrant agencie in meeting the challenge po ed by new re earch opportunitie and training need in the po t-Soviet field.

New Look at Imperial Russia

The JCSSS al 0 pon ored a three-day work hop on "Vi ion, In titution , and Experience of Imperial Ru ia" at the Kennan In titute for Advanced Ru ian Studie in Wa hington D.C. from September 9-12. Supported by a grant from the Mellon Foundation, thi work hop wa the fir t of two dedicated to the revitalization of re earch on the hi tory of imperial Ru ia, at a time of va tly improved acce to archival material , theoretical ferment in hi torical tudie, and increa ing intere t in the pre-

DECEMBER 1993

revolutionary hi tory of the Ru ian empire.

The di cu ion of imperial vi ion focu ed on the ymboli m of the imperial family hi torical ju tification for autocracy, and vi ual practice of imperial rule. A related et of i ue concerned Ru ian mi ionary activity in the borderland of the empire, repre entation of the ethnicitie of the empire, ideologie of colonization, and the practice of frontier life. A third topic included the inter ection or eparation within or between

different ocial group : the value and elf-repre entation of elite ociety; the dynami m of

middle-brow culture in the capital and the province ; and the loyaltie , behavior, and imagination of public and political actor . Thi project will continue with a econd work hop to be held in the fall of 1994.

International Predis ertation Fellowship Program (IPFP) Workshops

• IPFPIProgram on African Studie : Work hop 011 Gellder and HeaLth. On February 28-March 5, 1993, the IPFP and the Joint Committee on African Studie pon ored a work hop in Dar e

Salaam, Tanzania, in collabora­tion with the In titute of Develop­ment Studie , Muhimbili Univer-ity College of Health Science .

The work hop wa attended by tudent from a a number of ocial cience di cipline holding

fellow hip from the IPFP and the Program on African Studie , and tudent from the Univer ity of

Dar e Salaam and Muhimbili Univer ity College of Health

Science . It aim wa to encour­age collaboration on an interna­tional cale among cholar conducting ocial cience re earch on health and gender in Africa.

Student ' re earch intere t included the following: the impact of tructural adju tment on women and children in Kenya; gender and medicinal fore t product in Malaga y medical y tern ; Angola market women

and related i ue of gender and economic ; the impact of participation in a women' income generation project on hou ehold deci ion making, inve tment in women' health and women' health tatu in Mufindi Di trict, Iringa Region, Tanzania. Marjorie Mbilinyi, Department of Education, In titute of Development Studie at the Univer ity of Dar e Salaam and Angwara Kiwara, director of the In titute of Development Studie , Muhimbili Univer ity College of Health Science and lecturer at the Univer ity of Dar e Salaam, erved a work hop faculty.

Work hop participant al 0

vi ited the Tanzania Media Women' A ociation and the Women' Re earch and Docu­mentation Project, each of which hou e an exten ive collection of publication by and on women. Participant al 0 took part in a regularly cheduled eminar taught by M . Mbilinyi on gender and development at the Univer ity of Dar e Salaam.

• IPFPlLatin America and the Caribbean: Workshop 011

Ecollomic Inequality and SociaL Stratification in Latin America. On June 1-5, 1993, the IPFP and the Joint Committee on Latin American Studie pon ored a

ITEM / 95

Page 24: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

w rk h p in Quito, Ecuador in collaboration with the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociale (FLACSO).

The work hop brought together IPFP fellow from variou ocial cience di cipline and FLACSO­

Ecuador tudent for five day f inten ive critical di cu ion of ongoing re earch or re earch plan . The work hop wa de igned to caJl attention to the role of the tate, tate agent , and tate policie and practice in haping the context within which ubordinate group negotiate

collective identitie . The aim f the meeting wa to prom te interdi ciplinary dialogue and to encourage collaboration on an international cale among cholar conducting ocial cience re earch on economic inequality and ocial tratification in Latin America.

Topic included "Conflict, Political Order, and Interdepen­dence in Ecuador"; "Neighbor­hood Women' Organization and the P Iitization of Gender Identity and eed"; "Privatizati nand Related I ue;" and "The State and the Con truction of Citizen-hip in the Ande : National Unity

and Ethnic Difference in Bolivia and Ecuador." Di cu ion were conducted in b th Spani hand Engli h.

Ampar Menendez-Carri6n (FLACSO-Ecuador) led the w rk h p in which a number of Quito-ba ed cholar t k part.

Cultural Citizen hip in outhea t Asia

A conference on "Cultural Citizen hip in Southea t A ia" pon ored by the Joint Committee

on Southeast A ia, with upport

96\1TEM

from the Wenner-Gren Founda­tion and the Henry Luce Founda­tion, wa held at the Ea t-We t Center in Honolulu on May 2-4, 1993. The three-day conference wa attended by thirteen paper­giver, two di cu ant, and two taff members. *

The conference wa de igned to addre negotiation over member hip in the nation- tate at both tate and local level , with a number of theme emerging from both per pective . Di cu ion al 0 covered mediation, or "con­tact zone ," a paper examined the con truction and recon truc­tion of local identitie , including ethnicity, gender, and place within y tern of inequality.

The e theme were ex pI red u ing example from the Philip­pine , Thailand, lndone ia, Malay ia, and Vietnam. Although not every c untry in Southeast A ia wa repre ented, and not every conte ted ca e of cultural citizen hip, the range of example wa nonethele rich, ranging from the dramatic ca e of the formerly remote Penan of Sarawak-who have recently

gained international attention through their blockade of timber companie -to the ubtle Iingui tic form of re i tance of Javane e pea ant. The paper al 0 explored the rewriting of nationali t hi tory in Indone ia to incorporate (or era e) local gr up; hifting identitie of Mu lim in the outhern Philip­pine , and quite different negotiation in Mu lim identity in Thailand and lndone ia, Ngai identity in Vietnam, and Iban identity in Sarawak and We t Malay ia. Although the focu wa on particular ca e in Southea t A ia, the re ulting volume (t be edited by Renato Ro aldo, Stanford Univer ity) hould be of wide intere t to cholar con­cerned with negotiating identity and citizen hip el ewhere in the world.

Local Biology

In conjunction with it October 1-2 meeting at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral

cience in Palo Alto, the Committee on Culture, Health, and Human Development held a working conference on "Local Biology." Co-organized by Atwood Gaine (Ca e We tern Re erve Univer ity) and Carol Worthman (Emory Univer ity), the conference wa aimed at explicating a theoretical frame­work that under core the dynamic and particular, a oppo ed t the categorical and generalized. in under tanding human bi logy. Empha izing dynamic pr ce a central to bi I gy. thi per pective focu e on explaining variation - in both action and under tanding - n

OL 1E47.Nu1BER4

Page 25: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

more proximal level than doe cla ical evolutionary theory. It al 0 adopt a critical and compar­ative life hi tory outlook. At the conference the exploration of thi per pective wa framed by informal pre entation by Elliot Bla ,Cornell Univer ity; Praka h De ai, Univer ity of Illinoi , Chicago; Carol Jenkin , Papua New Guinea In titute of Medical Re earch; Melvin Konner, Emory Univer ity; Shigehi a Kuriyama, Emory Univer ity; Margaret Lock, McGill Univer ity; and the organizer , Mr. Gaine and M . Worthman. A volume containing both conceptual and empirical material relating to "Local Biology" i expected to re ult from the meeting.

Nationalizing the Past

A conference on "Nationalizing the Pa t" wa held in Goa, India, on May 21-23, 1993. The confer­ence wa pon ored by the Joint Committee on South A ia, with a i tance from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Norwegian Re-earch Council (NA VF), and the

Smith onian In titution . * Ba ed on Benedict Ander on'

• Participant in Iud d Mala d Alwi. Univ rsity of Chicago; B n di t Ande n. Cornell University; hahid Amin. In titute of Advan ed tudy. Berlin. and Deihl University; Paul Bras • UOIV r..ity of Wa hington; Partha Ch tterjee. C nter for Studie in ocial

cien e • Cal utta; E. Valentin D niel . University of MI hlgan. Ann Arbor; ichola Dirk! • University of Michigan. Ann Arbor; Tap ti Guha-That..urt . Center for tudie In

i I SClen .. Calcutta; Aye ha Jalal . Columbia University; Prodeep Jeganathan. University of Chi ago: John Knudsen. Bergen Umversity; Gyan Prot.. h. Prin eton Umver­ity; Romila Th par. Jawaharlal ehru

University; and Peter van der V er. University of Am terdam . Toby Alice Volkman and IIty Abraham ned a taff.

DECEMBER 1993

in ight that while the origin of modem nation are relatively recent, tate everywhere claim great antiquity, the conference wa de igned to explore variation of thi theme-how the past i nationalized-in the South A ian context.

Paper pre ented covered the hi toriography and 'traditional" text of South A ia; the commin­gling of cience, modernity and nationhood; how location affected conception of nation held by three generation of Tamil immigrant ; the hi torie of ubaltern. political and popular

culture in North and South India; vi ion of modernity in the work of three modem Indian painter ; the problem of uniquely identifying the "national" in the context of hi toric tone carving in Sri Lanka; multiple di cour e urrounding violent act in India;

and the offical rewriting of chool text in contemporary Paki tan .

Benedict Ander on and Romila Thapar acted a di cu ant -at­large, providing both compari on with other area uch a Sou thea t A ia and the relation hip of the academic to the political. The conference organizer, E. Valentine Daniel, Nichola B. Dirk, and Gyan Praka h, are working on an edited volume which will pre ent revi ed paper to a wider audience.

Global Land Use/Cover Modeling Workshop

The Council wa ho t on July 28-30 to a tran national re earch planning work hop de igned to con ider the development of a global land u e/cover model (GLM). The work hop wa pon ored by the Committee for

Re earch on Global Environmen­tal Change (GEC) and financed in part through a tran national planning grant from the Council and the American Council of Learned Societie . GLM' are expected to be an important component of the ocial cience of global environmental change: they will be u ed both for re earch and for planning policy re pon e to global change. The work hop wa attended by 19 re earcher from a range of ocial and natural cience. I It wa chaired by B.L. Turner II of Clark University, a GEC commit­tee member. Mr. Turner earlier headed a GEC con ortium on land u e. which propo ed the ubject of Global Land U e/Cover a a core project of the International Geo pherelBio phere Programme and the Human Dimen ion Programme.2 (Thi would be the

I The researchers att nding the meeting were: Daniel Bromley. University of Wi on-in. Madi n; Jell Bruin rna. United Nation

Food and Agriculture OrgaOlzati n; John A. Eddy. Con rtium for Int rnational Earth Science Information twork (CIESIN); GUnter Fi her. Intern ti nal In titute for Appli d Sy tern Analy i (IJASA); Loui O . Fre o. Agricultural University of Wagenin­gen; Dean Graetz. Comm n"-ealth Scientific and Indu trial Research Organization; Teitaro Kitamura. Kyoto University; Rik Leemans. National In titute of Pubhc Health and Environmental Protecti n. The Netherlands; LUlz A. Martinelli. Unive ity of ao Paulo; Elena Milanova. Mo ow State University; David orse. Over..e Development In titute ; H. W. O . Okoth-Og ndo. Unive ityof

airobi; Chri tine Padoch. ew York Botanical Garden; Martin Parry. University of Oxford; Lowell Pritchard. University of FI rida: Cynthia Ro nzweig. Goddard In titute ~ r Space Studie ; Steven anderson. University of FI rida; David kol. University of ew Hamp hire; and B. L. Turner II. Clark University. Many of th attendee are members of the IGBPIHDP Core Project Planning Committee for Global Land U ICover Change. taff: David C. Major.

2 See Rt'lating LAnd Ust' and Global

ITEM / 97

Page 26: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

fir t core IGBP project with a ub tantial ocial cience input,

and the fir t joint core project with the HOP.) In thi work, land u e refer to the purpo e for which human exploit land cover; land cover i defined a the phy ical attribute of a egment of the earth' urface and immediate ub urface. For example,

agriculture i a land u e, and cropland i a land-cover type with cultivated plant .

The propo ed GLM' will erve input to, a well a u e input

fr m, the phy icaJly-ba ed gl bal circulation model (GCM') that are the primary tool u ed to pre­dict future climate change cau ed by greenhou e gase ; GCM' are n w a part of public di course on gl bal change.3 In either c e, GCM' can be linked through GLM' to population, other driv­ing force , and land u e/Jand cover component to produce a model capable of generating analy and projection of global land u e/ cover change over time period of decade to centurie . Such a model will help to as e the hu­man dimen ion of global environ­mental change, allowing ocial cienti t to examine the implica­

tion of current trend in driving force and land tran formation for future environmental change. en-itivity and policy experiment can

be performed to examine the r Ie of climate feedback and economic

Land·Covu Chan~l', IGBP Report No. 24IHDP Report o. 5, StoclJlolm, February 1993.

J On GCM' , <Ce, for example, Han n, J. et aI., "Global Climate Ch nge Foree t by Goddard In titute for pa e tudi Three-Ounen i nal Model," Journal of Gl'ophy ieal Rl'sl'areh, 93:0 ( ugust 20, 19 8) 9341-9364.

9 'ITEMS

and ocial policy initiative perti­nent to land u e.

The problem to which model re ult may be applicable include the impact of land u e abatement cherne on global warming, ocial adju tment to climate

change, and migration and ecurity implication for global

change. GLM' can provide input to national, regional, tran national and global develop­ment tudie . An area peciali t for example, could u e climate change cenario to project area land u e/cover condition , u ing the e in the a e ment of human migration pattern . An eco y tern modeler could evaluate differing tropical defore tat ion pattern with and without climate change and with alternative level of other driving force in the model, including population growth.

The task of the Council work­hop was to examine the mo t

fruitful approache to the develop­ment of a GLM. Among the pre­entation were di cu i n. of case tudie of land u e/cover to inden­

tify common ituation patially and temporaJly; the conceptual tructure of pr po ed GLM' ; cal­

ing, or how to interlink local, re­gional, and gl bal variable ; the development of a data trategy to upport ca e tudie; and the devel­

opment of land u e/cover c1as ifi­cation and the identification of critical type and ubtype. One re ult of the work hop wa agree­ment that a two-pronged approach to the development of GLM' i called for: first, to attempt to build on exi ting regional and ectoral land u e m eling effort , and econd, to con ider the alternative

of developing completely new model.

The Environment and Trade

The Committee for Re earch on Global Environmental Change (GEC) held one of it erie of eminar during it meeting on

October 7-8, 1993, at the Council. The eminar, on the ubject of environment and trade,

with pecial empha i on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFT A) and Mexico, wa arranged by Edith Brown Wei ,Georgetown Law Center, the GEC chair. Invited participant included Gene Gro man, Princeton Univer ity; Daniel B. Magraw, United State Environmental Protection Agency and Univer ity of Colorado Sch I of Law; and Alejandro Nadal, Colegio de Mexico.

M . Brown Wei prefaced the pre entation with a ummary of the devel pment of idea on environment and trade in recent year. Mr. Nadal began hi talk with a detailed di cu ion of the environmental provi ion of

AFT A and their relation to other agreement uch a the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT) and the Conven­tion on International Trade in Endanged Specie (CITES). He then di cu ed hi work on tuna fi herie in the Ea tern Pacific Ocean, an i ue in which u tainable development,

international trade, and technical change inter ect.

Mr. Magraw di cu ed the intellectual i ue ari ing in the integration of environment and trade in AFTA, including the effort required to meld the training and a umption of trade peciali t and environmentali t

both within and out ide the Federal government. He then

VOLUME 47, Nu lBER 4

Page 27: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

de cribed the exten ive in titu­tionaJ tructure for environmental management and control that i envi ioned in the upplementary agreement to NAFTA that wa completed earlier thi year.

Finally, Steven Sander on, a committee member, ummarized

Mr. Gro man' paper in the lat­ter' ab ence. Mr. Gro man and Alan Krueger pre ented tentative finding that trade liberalization may include orne environmental benefit to Mexico, namely, the alleviation of pollution problem becau e of income growth, and

the po ible pecialization in ac­tivitie requiring relatively low energy input. Mr. Sander on added orne per pective on truc­tural i ue in the Mexican econ­omy ugge ting that energy u e might be higher than otherwi e expected.

Recent Council Publications

Beyond Sovietology: Es ays in Politics and History, edited by Su an Gro Solomon. Spon ored by the Joint Committee on the Soviet Union and It Succe or State. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. 254 page .

At a time when the leading We tern peciali t in Ru ian tudie are engaged in a retro­pective apprai aJ of their field,

Beyond Sovietology offer a collection of e ay by a new generation of expert on Ru ian politic and hi tory that examine the challenge po ed by future re earch on the former Soviet Union . Compri ed of work by participant in the fir t four SSRC graduate tudent work hop on Soviet Dome tic Politic and Society during 1987-1990, the e ay in thi volume reveal a number of important trend in the changing field of po t-Soviet tudie .

Fir t, they reflect the intere t of young area tudie cholar in building bridge to the variou academic di cipline . The new generation of Ru ian tudie peciali t begin with the

premi e that the di cipline can be ource of u eful que tion and

heuri tic approache . Moving

DECEMBER 1993

beyond the di cipline conven­tionally a ociated with the tudy of Ru ian politic - political cience, hi tory and economic -

the e e ay draw on wide­ranging and diver e bodie of literature, including ociaJ geography, Iingui tic , and legal tudie .

Second, Beyond Sovietology give voice to young peiali t on the former Soviet Union who are experimenting with new method and theorie in tudying the politic of the region. Di cour e analy i , po tmodern interpretive method, rational choice theory, and exploration of tate- ociety relation are effectively employed to analyze uch problem a the role of ideology in elite politic , ethnicity and modernization, in titutional reform, the emer­gence of public intere t group , the de ign of ociaJ welfare program, and management-labor relation in newly autonomou firm . By u ing new method and theorie the contributor offer new understanding of political proce e and outcome in Ru ia.

Finally, the e ay reflect new opportunitie for conducting re earch in a data-rich environ­ment. Unlike their predece ors,

who repeatedly apologized for the quality and reliability of their data, the new generation of tudent of Ru ian politic i

able to produce tudie that rely on public opinion poll, urvey, and que tionnaire , a well a interview with official who were until quite recently inacce -ible.

Su an Oro Solomon i a profe or of political cience at the Univer ity of Toronto.

Fear at the Edge: State Terror and Resistance in Latin America, edited by Juan E. Corradi, Patricia Wei Fagen, and Manuel Antonio Garret6n. Spon ored by the Joint Committee on Latin American Studie , with upport from the Andrew W.

Mellon Foundation. Berkeley: Univer ity of California Pre , 1992. 301 page .

De pite the emergence of fragile democracie in Latin America in the 1980 , a legacy of fear and repre ion haunt the region. In thi volume, a range of writer explore the complicated dynamic of authoritarian rule and re i tance to it in Chile, Argen­tina Brazil, and Uruguay from

ITEM / 99

Page 28: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

the 1960 to the mid-1980 . Bringing together a group of primarily Latin American cholar , the book chronicle the

effect of y tematic tate terr r on the ocial fabric.

The contributor examine the deep en e of in ecurity and the complex ocial p ychology of people who live in authoritarian regime . They write about the con equence of tate- pon ored terror and the brutal mea ure taken again t tho e who oppo ed it. In orne ca e , official di cour e reca t "collective memory" and ob cured the relation hip between tate violence and a fal e en e of order.

Government effort to rational­ize or rna k repre ion, however, have not alway ucceeded. In orne ca e , the climate of

intimidation created by ecretive ecurity apparatu ha given ri e

to indirect form of re i tance and overt form of oppo ition . In Chile, a popular prote t move­ment developed de pite con tant and har h repre ion, while in Uruguay m t civilian oppo ition, clande tine in nature, wa ba ed in traditional political partie . Con iderably more political activity wa tolerated in Brazil than in Argentina or Uruguay, where more people were victim­ized directly.

The tran it ion to civilian rule in all four countrie ha pot lighted the powerful legacy of fear in formerly authoritarian countrie . The e e ay reveal in ight into how fear i generated, legiti­mized, accommodated, and re i ted among people living under dictatorial rule.

Juan E. Corradi i profe or of ociology at ew York Univer-

lOO\ ITEM

ity; Patricia Wei Fagen work for the United Nation High Commi ion for Refugee in El Salvador; and Manuel Garret6n i a member of the Latin American Faculty of Social Science in Santiago, Chile.

Plantation , Peasants, and Proletarians in Colonial A ia, edited by E. Valentine Daniel, Henry Bern tein, and Tom Bra Library of Pea ant Studie II. Ba ed on a September 1990 conference pon ored by the Joint Committee on South A ia and the Joint Committee on Southea t A ia, a well a the World In titute for Development Economic Re earch of the United Nation Univer ity, and the Royal Netherland Academy of Science . London: Frank Ca & Co., 1992. 299 page.

The principal focu of thi volume i on the origin and recruitment of plantation labor, labor proce e, and labor regime on colonial plantation . E ay written by an international group of cholar cover the production of rubber, ugar, tea, and other plantation crop in colonial Indochina, Java, Malaya, the Philippine , India, Ceylon, Mauritiu , and Fiji.

An introduct ry the retical e ay a e e appr ache to unfree labor on colonial planta­tion and in capitali m more generally. The concluding e ay con ider di cour e of " the coolie" generated by colonial capitali m in A ia. The book combine detailed hi torical tudie with comparative and

theoretical reflection and provide in ight into the political

ec no my of agrarian change in the modern world.

E. Valentine Daniel i profe-or of anthr pology at the

Univer ity of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Henry Bern tein i at the In titute for Development Policy and Management Univer ity of Manche ter. Tom Bra teache at the Faculty of Social and Political Science , Univer ity of Cam­bridge.

Political Dynamics in Contem­porary Japan, edited by Gary D. Allin on and Ya unori Sone. Spon red by the Joint Committee on Japane e Studie and the Japan Society ~ r the Promotion of Science, with additional upport from the Japan-U.S. Friend hip Commi ion . Ithaca: Cornell Univer ity Pre ,1993. 311 page.

Ri ing affluence, ocial fragmentation, and international participation have wrought ubtle but important change in Japane e politic . Political re ource have expanded, political coalition have become more fluid, and political di pute have bec me more vig rou ly conte ted. In thi book ix American and ix Japane e peciali t join to identify and interpret the e change . They tart from the admini trative reform movement of the 19 0 , which magnified the ignificance of conte t over

public and private intere t . Several of the author examine

dome tic i ue profoundly haped by the reform movement:

deregulation of financial ervice; privatization and its con e­quence ; reorganization within the labor movement; negotiation of

VOLU IE 47. Nu lBER 4

Page 29: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

land u e policie ; and regulation of retail trade. Other adopt a broader per pective to illuminate the nation' hifting policy agenda, the changing role of the tate and it relation to public

intere t , and the hi toricaJ and ocioeconomic context of political

change. An approach that acknowledge the perva ivene and importance of continuou bargaining, they maintain, promi e to enhance our under-tanding of the dome tic politic

of contemporary Japan. Gary D. Allin on i Ellen

Bayard Weedon Profe or of Ea t A ian Studie at the Univer ity of Virginia. Ya unori Sone i a profe or on the Faculty of Law at Keio Univer ity.

Repression, Exile, and Democ­racy: Uruguayan Culture, edited by Saul So now ki and Loui e B. Popkin. Paper from a 1986 work hop pon ored by the Univer ity of Maryland and the Joint Committee on Latin American Studie . Durham, North Carolina: Duke Univer ity Pre ,

DECEMBER 1993

1993, 260 page. (Engli h tran lation of Represioll . exilio. y demoeraeia: La eultura Uru­guaya. College Park: Univer ity of Maryland, and Montevideo: Edicione de la Banda Oriental, 1987.)

Ru ian Culture in Tran ition: Selected Paper of the Working Group for the Study of Contem­porary Ru ian Culture, 1990-1991, edited by Gregory Freidin. Spon ored by the Joint Committee on the Soviet Union and It Succe or State . Stanford Slavonic Studie , Vol. 7, 1993. 323 page .

Thi volume offer peciaJi t in Ru ian tudie a election of e ay (which are in Ru ian and in Engli h) on orne of the more important recent trend in Ru ian culture. They are ba ed on the paper pre ented at the fir t two meeting of the Working Group on Contemporary Ru ian Culture in 1990 and 1991. The e ay provide the reader with a nap hot of a culture in tran ition,

highlighting the area of the greate t tran formation in thinking about the phenomenon of Ru ian culture, and ketching out a map of orne of the mo t intriguing development in cultural produc­tion in Ru ia on the eve of the collap e of communi m.

The book i divided into four part , each focu ed on an area in which conventional thinking ha been undergoing a great tran for­mation: the unity of Ru ian culture v . a multiplicity of Ru ian culture ; the tability v . the fluidity of the divi ion between fundamental dichotomie of Ru ian culture uch a the "high" and the "low" culture, the rna culine and the feminine, the proper and the ob cene; the extent to which the Ru ian intelligentsia i or i not implicated in Soviet culture; and, finally, the que tion of Ru ia' own identity at a time when the Ru ian Federation wa trying to di engage from the U.S.S.R.

Gregory Freidin i a ociate profe or of Slavic language and literature at Stanford Univer ity.

ITEM 1101

Page 30: Items Vol. 47 No. 4 (1993)

SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL 605 THIRD AVENUE, EW YORK , Y 10158

(212) 661-0280 FAX (212) 370-7 96

nr~ Coun i1l\'as incorpora/~d in III~ Slall' of JIIinoi • Dl'cl'm/Nr 27. 1924, for IIII' purpost of admncing fl'starch in Ihl' social scil'nCl's. ongm'l'rnml'ntal and intl'rdi ciplinary in nalUrl'. IIII' Council appoillls commillus of scllolars II'lriclr suk 10 aclril'vl' Ilrl' Council's purpost Ilrroug" Ilrl' gl'neralion of nl'\\' idl'a and Ihl' training of scholar. TI.I' aCIMlil'S of Ilrl' Council art supportl'd primarily by granl from prim/l' foundalions and govl'rnml'nt agl'ncil'S.

Dirl'CIOr , 1993-94: P LB. B LT ,Mu PI n k In tiMe for Hum n Devel pment and Edu ation (Berlin); ROB[RT H. B TE , Duk University; L WRE 'CE D. BOBO, Univen.ity of California. Lo Angele ; ROBERT M. COE, orth",e tern University; WILLI M CRO. O. , University of Wi on in, Madi n; D VIO

L. FE THERM , ocial cience Re ar h Council; ALBERT FI HLO~ , University of California, Berkeley; B RB R HEY , ew York Univen.ity; N G YO HOMM ,Tokyo Wom n' Chri lIan niv rsity; JOEL HERZER, University of Texa • Au tin; B RTO H. I GER, Y Ie Univen.ity; M RT TIE 0 • University of Chi ago; KE ETH W. W HTER, University of California. Berkeley; A ETTE B. Wn ER. Yorl.. University; ROBERT B. ZAJo. • Univen.ity of Mi higan , Ann Arbor.

OjJiCl'rs and Staff: D VID L. FE

The ocial cien e Re arch Council upports the program of the Comrni ion on Preservation and Acce nd i repre nt d on the N tional Advi Council on Pre rvation. Th p per used in !h. publicati n meet the minimum requirements of American

cien - P rman nce of Paper for Printed Library Material . . A I Z39.4 19 4. The infinity ymbol placed in a circle indicate compliance with !hi tandard .

Social Science Research Council 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158

III IW o/ llml! art at'll/Iablt 11/ Mlcr%nn. ' ni\ I it~ 1i rofilm International

300 ;'\onh Z eb Road, D pt. PR, nn rbor, MI 4 106

ADDRESS CORRECTION REQUESTED

104\ITEM I s 0049-0903

NONPROFIT ORG.

U. S. POSTAGE

PA I 0 ALBANY, N. Y. Permit No. 31

VOL IE 47, NUMBER 4