The Invention of Culture

by Roy Wagner

The Invention of Culture , one of the most important works in symbolic anthropology in recent years, argues that culture is not a given that shapes the lives of the people who share it. Rather, it is people who shape their culture by constantly manipulating conventional symbols taken from a variety of everchanging codes to create new meanings. Wagner sees culture arising from the dialectic between the individual and the social world; his analysis is situated in the relation between invention and convention, innovation and control, meaning and context. Finally, the author points out that the symbolization processes that generate the construction of meaning in culture are the same as those that anthropologists use to "invent" the cultures they study.

Genres: Anthropology, Cultural, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Social Science, History

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

He received a B.A. in Medieval History from Harvard University (1961), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago (1966), where he studied under David M. Schneider. He conducted fieldwork among the Daribi of Karimui, in the Simbu Province of Papua New Guinea, as well as the Usen Barok of New Ireland. Wagner taught at Southern Illinois University and Northwestern University before accepting the chairmanship of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, where he currently teaches.

Specializations
Indigenous conceptual systems, especially involving kin relations; ritual, myth and worldview in Melanesia, Australia, and North America; pragmatics of cultural representation (imagery, writing, and speech) as a basis for symbolism; shamanism and curing techniques exclusive of psychological, political, or "ethnic" perspectives; studies involving the human element in technology and power concepts.

Reviews

[Frank R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first two chapters of this text as it pertained to the negotiation (or invention) of culture via the meanings gleaned from the interactions between informants and anthropologists in ethnographic fieldwork.

This was one of those big theory texts in the burgeoning postmodern movement in the cultural anthropology of the 1980’s. At the time, I imagine this must have been a piece of valuable support in shattering essentialist, monolithic notions of Culture, ethnography, etc. It is because of these types of texts that no one today thinks that shifting ideas/behaviors in a society/group is an indicator of a vast “culture change.” Instead, we have come to see that culture, religion, etc. are all being “invented” as we engage with each other and the filters of cognition we understand as given through a cultural milieu.

With this said, I want to stress what a bore Chapter 3 and following were to read. Wagner really dove into creating a mountain of his own jargon and theorizing—even though his understanding of culture is anti-theoretical—that was virtually incoherent. Or perhaps he lost me in the technical minutia and in glazing over, I lost all sense of what he was trying to do. Either way, he complexifies a subject he was trying to reveal to the point that it is not worth reading for an explanation said subject.

[Sean Thayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of those rare works whose form demonstrates its content while its content explicates its form (Wagner loves these sorts of chiasmic epigrams).

In that way, the book reminds me of an academic version of Danielewski's House of Leaves. But rather than taking the form of a topsy-turvy page-turner, forcing one to physically juggle the book while juggling scope, it involves the reader in a hermeneutic project requiring a juggling of perspectives.

Its metalogic style both frustrates and intrigues. Even when you're confident that you've intellectually understood, it feels as if there's something more to 'get', something that takes time and patience to unlock. This is necessary because, what's being explained (and demonstrated) is not only something new to think about but a new way of thinking about it. To really digest Wagner's message one has to reorient; one has to invent for oneself an Invention of Culture. If you didn't sweat over this book, if you didn't reread the middle chapters numerous times, you didn't scratch the surface.

This is also a major precursor to anthropology's "ontological turn." And Wagner demonstrates, in numerous ways, why anthropology is the frontier of an authentic philosophy with real stakes, without ever needing to make the claim explicit.

Very difficult. Very much worth it.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try to avoid snooty English-major critiques of the social sciences: Condemnations of the impenetrable nature of "sociologese," for instance. After all, social scientists are doing different things and pursuing different ends than folks in English, so some differences in writing styles make sense.

This book, however, broke me--at least temporarily. Wagner raises some potentially interesting points about the ways invention and convention contribute to how cultures are composed. He is so committed to binary dialectical oppositions, however, that the book often seems reductive. He is also remarkably inconsistent in what words he uses for particular phenomena, which makes reading the text an incredibly difficult process. Not that difficulty can't serve a purpose, but I don't get the sense there's a point about the inherent flaws and limitations of language underlying the density of his prose.

In short, though Wagner's ideas as occasionally compelling, there are probably other, clearer books on the ways cultures' epistemologies work.

[Suzana Da Veiga · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A invenção é a forma da nossa experiência e do nosso entendimento".

"O homem é tantas coisas que se fica tentando apresentá-lo em trajes particularmente bizarros, só para mostrar o que ele é capaz de fazer, ou pelo menos a escolher um disfarce que reforce uma determinada linha argumentativa. E no entanto, tudo o que ele é, ele também não é, pois a sua mais constante natureza não é a de SER, mas a de DEVIR".

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Antropologia sob uma ótica moderna e provocativa, combinando características inatas e artificiais para compor infinitas definições do homem (humanidade). Brilhante.

[Isabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un libro que sin duda replantea la teoría antropológica, y nos invita a replantear la metoología utilizada en toda investigación etnográfica. Sin embargo, me preocupa las consecuencias del relativista a nivel ético de esta propuesta

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for anthro majors, a good primer on the real deal with what culture is....