Transcendent Individual: Towards a Literary and Liberal Anthropology

231 Pages·1997·1.91 MB·English

by  Nigel Rapport

Transcendent Individual

How might anthropology seem if it were written in celebration of
individuality—of the individual’s conscious and creative engagement
with socio-cultural milieux—and if it were committed to a liberal
agenda which sought to cherish and defend that individuality?
Transcendent Individual argues for just such a commitment: a
reappraisal of the place of the individual in anthropological theorising
and ethnographic writing, and a social-scientific appreciation of the
individual as methodological, moral, pragmatic and aesthetic subject.
Here is an anthropological account of individual creativity, of the
narrativity of individual expression, of the originality of individual
becoming, and of the morality of the individual body.
Drawing widely on ethnographic and theoretic materials, and
bringing into debate a range of voices—Nietzsche, Wilde and Forster,
Bateson and Gerald Edelman, George Steiner, Richard Rorty and
John Berger, Edmund Leach and Anthony Cohen—the book
approaches individuality in terms of a range of issues: biological
integrity, consciousness, agency, democracy, discourse, knowledge,
consumerism, globalism and play.
Written in an accessible style, and juxtaposing literary and
philosophical against anthropological voices Transcendent Individual
presents its readers with a social-scientific issue of importance and
topical concern.
Nigel Rapport is Professor of Anthropological and Philosophical
Studies at the University of St Andrews.

Transcendent Individual
Towards a Literary and
Liberal Anthropology

Nigel Rapport
London and New York
First published 1997
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1997 Nigel Rapport
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Rapport, Nigel, 1956–
Transcendent Individual: towards a literary and liberal anthropology/
Nigel Rapport.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 202) and index.
1. Ethnology—Philosophy. 2. Ethnology—Authorship.
3. Individuality. 4. Ethnology in literature. I. Title.
GN33.R36 1997
305.8’001–dc21
97–7414
CIP

ISBN 0-203-44827-8 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-75651-7 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0-415-16966-6 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-16967-4 (pbk)
What, however, does it mean that we find an insatiable pleasure in
making ourselves into our own possibilities, and cannot—in spite
of knowing what it is—cease to play the game of our potentials? It
is to questions of this kind that literary anthropology has to
address itself.
Wolfgang Iser
Towards a Literary Anthropology
To
Elizabeth
and
Callum
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Manifesto
Towards a liberal and literary appreciation of the
conscious and creative individual 1
1 Writing Individual Knowledge and Personal Relations
Eschewing the paths to impersonalisation 12
2 ‘Going Meta’
Structure and creativity 30
3 Individual Narratives
‘Writing’ as a mode of thought which gives meaning
to experience 43
4 Movement and Identity
Narrations of ‘home’ in a world in motion 64
5 “Surely Everything Has Already Been Said About
Malinowski’s Diary!” 80
6 Writing Fieldnotes
On the conventionalities of note-taking and taking
note, local and academic 93
7 Domino Worlds
At home on the dominoes-table in Wanet 106
8 Hard-sell or Mumbling “Right” Rudely
The hold of conversation: the power of discursive
surfaces 141
vii
viii Contents
9 Discourse and Creativity
Sheikh Alwan: Fathalla: Sid Askrig 164
10 Individual Morality
Between liberalism, anthropology and biology 180
Bibliography 202
Index 215
Acknowledgements
In the preparation of these essays, a number of individuals were kind
enough to act variously as mentors, interlocutors, critics and
confidants. Above all, I benefited from the generous commentary of
Vered Amit-Talai, Eduardo Archetti, Aleksander Boskovik, Anthony
Cohen, Peter Collins, Andrew Dawson, Roy Dilley, Jeanette Edwards,
Anna Grimshaw, Claudia Gross, Ladislav Holy, Allison James,
Tamara Kohn, Joanna Overing, David Riches, Anne Rowbottom,
Jonathan Skinner, Marilyn Strathern and Deborah Wickering.
Three of the essays appeared in earlier incarnations in
Anthropology Today, and I owe Jonathan Benthall, the journal’s
editor, a great deal for the invitations to contribute, as well as for his
patience with my efforts.
At Routledge, Heather Gibson has remained a most supportive
editor and a stimulating fellow-traveller in the enterprise of literary
anthropology.
Finally, I do not forget the support—and all else—of Elizabeth
Munro, to whom (along with Callum) the volume is dedicated
with love.
NJR
St Andrews 1997
ix