The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art

by James Clifford

The Predicament of Culture is a critical ethnography of the West in its changing relations with other societies. Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, James Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in post-colonial contexts. His critique raises questions of global significance: Who has the authority to speak for any group's identity and authenticity? What are the essential elements and boundaries of a culture? How do self and "the other" clash in the encounters of ethnography, travel, and modern interethnic relations?

In chapters devoted to the history of anthropology, Clifford discusses the work of Malinowski, Mead, Griaule, L�vi-Strauss, Turner, Geertz, and other influential scholars. He also explores the affinity of ethnography with avant-garde art and writing, recovering a subversive, self-reflexive cultural criticism. The surrealists' encounters with Paris or New York, the work of Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris in the Coll�ge de Sociologie, and the hybrid constructions of recent tribal artists offer provocative ethnographic examples that challenge familiar notions of difference and identity. In an emerging global modernity, the exotic is unexpectedly nearby, the familiar strangely distanced.

Genres: Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Nonfiction, Theory, Ethnography, Art, Cultural

398 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

James Clifford is a historian and Professor in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Clifford and Hayden White were among the first faculty directly appointed to the History of Consciousness Ph.D. program in 1978, which was originally the only graduate department at UC-Santa Cruz. The History of Consciousness department continues to be an intellectual center for innovative interdisciplinary and critical scholarship in the U.S. and abroad, largely due to Clifford and White's influence, as well as the work of other prominent faculty who were hired in the 1980’s. Clifford served as Chair to this department from 2004-2007.

Clifford is the author of several widely cited and translated books, including The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (1988) and Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late 20th Century (1997), as well as the editor of Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, with George Marcus (1986). Clifford's work has sparked controversy and critical debate in a number of disciplines, such as literature, art history and visual studies, and especially in cultural anthropology, as his literary critiques of written ethnography greatly contributed to the discipline’s important self-critical period of the 1980's and early 1990's.

Clifford's dissertation research was conducted at Harvard University in History (1969-1977), and focused on anthropologist Maurice Leenhardt and Melanesia. However, because of his impact on the discipline of anthropology, Clifford is sometimes mistaken as an anthropologist with graduate training in cultural anthropology. Rather, Clifford's work in anthropology is usually critical and historical in nature, and does not often include fieldwork or extended research at a single field site. A geographical interest in Melanesia continues to influence Clifford's scholarship, and his work on issues related to indigeneity, as well as fields like globalization, museum studies, visual and performance studies, cultural studies, and translation, often as they relate to how the category of the indigenous is produced.

Reviews

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clifford is excellent for understanding the construct of culture between the first and third world. For anyone studying art that traverses cultural and temporal lines, this is a must read.

[Dagezi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning of "the Pure Products Go Crazy" and the first strains of "Summer Babe" by Pavement both marked thresholds that I knew I was crossing as I was crossing them.

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I like about this book besides its marriage of anthropology, history, and literary studies is its form. Clifford argues that collage is a more representative form of culture than a linear, cohesive narrative. And then he does it.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

first obtained and read this book around the time it came out, and again when my university classes made me read it a few years later. recently obtained a fresh copy of this book and re-read. this is my quick review:

just finished a frankly amazing book that treats many of the issues surrounding the topic of repatriation fairly extensively. james clifford's "the predicament of culture: twentieth-century ethnography, literature, and art" from 1988, a collection of essays about art collecting and about the colonial context of that collecting is an exceedingly relevant and up-to-date exploration, despite having been written some 30-35 years ago.

there was a huge vogue in indigenous, native, "tribal," and african work/ culture in the early 20th century, which vogue governments and museums fed via missions to plunder these places. given that the colonial age wasn't beginning to end until around 1950, that's a good long time to be plundering. this is a very complicated topic but clifford tackles it deftly. if you are interested in the intersection of art and culture, I can unequivocally recommend this book to you (but with one proviso given below). clifford is an extremely engaging writer. this is actually some of the best academic prose I've come across, especially in the realm of art.

though a small proviso is in order: I can't imagine that the book would be easy/ sensible reading if you are completely new to surrealism (a topic that forms much of the book's "plot"). also if you are completely unfamiliar with cultural anthropology, this is probably not the best book to start out with. as it presupposes a bit of familiarity with some of cultural anthropology's basic conceptual tools and many of surrealism's keynotes and leitmotifs, I think most of the book will simply go over your head and you'd be left wondering what the point of the author's efforts were if you don't have already a familiarity with these two topics.

[Sara]

collecting art and culture

[armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a particular book... it's actually a selection of essays, themed most vaguely around ethnography but they can pretty much be read by any order. Some of them are historical, some are anthropological, one is a series of postcards and one is a series of interviewers with the Mashpee community in Massachusetts; some depart from literature and go into anthropology. The essays that I most liked were the ones about Orientalism and Aime Cesaire. Clifford believes that ethnography as a discipline changed its shape over the past one hundred years with the birth of professional ethnographers. However, these professionals do not manage to get a good grasp of cultures of other lands as their depictions are often holistic and what they do is essentially pigeonholing their observations. The book also serves a good example of different trends in ethnography and modern anthropology.

[VAle · Rating 2 out of 5]

preso in biblioteca

Ah, il vecchio Clifford!
Questo era un testo a scelta in un esame. Lui mi era piaciuto, volevo capire di più...
Ma al terzo capitolo avevo capito. Avevo capito che non sarei riuscita a finire il libro. No, questo tipo di analisi non mi hanno mai appassionata. Magari sarà per la prossima volta, eh?

[Christine Elsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Good glimpse of where culture is today and the nature of complexity. His message is bitter/sweet !