Monday, September 22, 2008
"Foreignness begins at the skin's edge..."
This week we will be moving deeper into the Australian outback and farther into the creative wilderness of Chatwin's imagination. We will also be taking up two new readings: Henri Baudet's _Paradise on Earth_ and Tzvetan Todorov's _The Conquest of America_. The latter work is challenging, but should seem vaguely familiar, given that it is about the encounter of Europeans with the indigenous peoples of "the new world." It will be our task to try to re-examine the conjuncture of these cultures with an eye to understanding why the encounter turned violent. We will benefit in this context from the partial quote from Clifford Geertz cited in the title of this newest post: "Foreignness begins at the skin's edge, not the water's." Let's use the blog this week to reflect on these readings and to explore what they have in common,something that should become very apparent by the time we read Marshall Sahlins for Thursday.
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“Foreignness begins at the waters edge” refers more to political and physical borders while “foreignness at the skins edge” refers to the foreignness between individuals. The differences between people of different cultures and even within one culture are due to values, customs, language, appearance, and traditions. These differences lead to misunderstandings that can escalate to violence when the “other” cultures meet and both seek the land or another commodity. The differences make it easier to de-humanize the other and do things like kill or enslave them. The readings this week explored the conflicts when Columbus and other Europeans came to the Americas in search of gold primarily, and the conflict over one space for multiple peoples became violent. The Europeans wouldn’t have enslaved another European culture because of their shared Christian heritage but because the natives were different in every way from geographically, religiously, and culturally the Europeans found no moral dilemma about conquering the natives. The more one distances oneself from the “other,” the easier it is to neglect following the ‘golden rule’. Even in cases where two parties are not so diametrically opposed, they will find minor differences between themselves. Each individual carries a certain idea of his own identity, and that identity is used to distinguish oneself from others, even those who are, from an external view, similar. If we distinguish ourselves from relatively similar “others” on such minor counts, when the differences between “self” and “other” become even marginally larger, the gap by which we distance ourselves becomes exponentially larger. In cases of conflicts between cultures, this difference, extrapolated, can easily devolve into violence at the slightest spark.
Sexual habits, for example, a sign of moral culture, while not provoking violence, can radically alter the interactions and attitudes between the in-group and the others, as demonstrated in Islands of History by Marshall Sahlins. Taken in and accepted as gods upon first encounter by the Hawaiians, the subsequent interactions acted as a social rift to widen the gap between group self and other. As a final note about otherness and inclusiveness: We <3 DR. J
With love,
Brendan “The Man” Keeler, Dacey "The Lover" Jackson, Michael “The Conqueror” Hughes, Brendan “the Irish” O’Reilly
Geertz’s quote, "Foreignness begins at the skin's edge, not the water's,” describes how objects that exist outside of your skin cannot become fully a part of our own beings. This includes the fact that people and objects within our culture cannot become a part of our beings either. Cabeza de Vaca is an example of this “otherness;” he lives among the natives for almost ten years, but still is recognizable as a foreigner to those people. He does not ever become fully integrated into their society. Then, when he returns to the Spanish settlements, his new perspective towards the natives causes him to be foreign to them as well. Our skin acts as a barrier to the “other.” In “The Conquest of America,” Todorov describes the conflict that arises when the Europeans arrive in the Americas and encounter the natives. Initially, the natives are not viewed as “other.” This transition occurs when the Europeans realize the natives are not Christian and also when the Europeans believe that the natives are preventing the Europeans from obtaining gold and other resources. Similarly, in Paradise on Earth, Europeans build up expectations in their minds of how foreign peoples live. They believe that less “civilized” people have a greater possible connection to Eden. These beliefs stem from legends and stories rather than empirical evidence. They became disenchanted with the way other civilizations lived as opposed to the real customs and traditions they practiced. This contributed to the European’s maltreatment of the natives, because their ways of life did not live up to their expectations.
-Kyle, Jacqueline, Tim, Michael C., Melissa
Geertz’s quotation, “Foreignness begins at the skin's edge, not the water's," refers to the difference between individual people as opposed to the clash between cultures and groups. Geertz says that the differences that cause conflict and feelings of “otherness” stem from the inability of one person to completely understand another, rather than the cultural clash resulting from disparity of beliefs and practices. Generally, there is a tendency to assume that in the meeting of two people of different cultures, the differences seen are a result of culture. For example, in Islands of History, Sahlins relates the story of Captain Cook and his encounter with the native Hawaiian people. One has an inclination to view the clash that eventually resulted as a consequence of the difference between European culture and that of the native Hawaiians, but Geertz’s quote suggests that this difference originates with individuals rather than the two groups. This is evident in the fact that Captain Cook was still viewed by the Hawaiians as a god while his crew was seen as defiled because of their practice of eating with women. The fact that the Hawaiians mentally separated Cook from the rest of his group shows that their differences were seen on the basis of individual action rather than as a group, aka “skins edge” as opposed to “water’s”. In his narrative, Cabeza de Vaca’s ability to partly incorporate himself into the natives’ culture by becoming a healer stems from his view of the natives as individuals instead of a group of heathens. The Spaniards in general focus on the difference at the “waters edge,” seeing the natives as brutal and savage, and therefore justify their lack of attempt to see them at the “skin’s edge.” In the Secret Sharer, Joseph Conrad uses the captain of the ship to demonstrate how identifying with an individual is easier when one can separate them from the group they’re associated with. The captain is able to understand Leggatt because he sees him as an individual human being rather than grouping him with murderers and convicts. In contrast, Leggatt’s captain immediately groups Leggatt with his idea of outlaws and therefore cannot identify with his motives or reasoning. If the captain had been able to see Leggatt at the “skin’s edge” instead of at the “water’s edge,” as a murderer, he may have been able to help Leggatt instead of driving him to a desperate escape from the ship. As Todorov claimed in his writings on the “Discovery of America,” it should become evident that the interactions between disparate groups and individuals are not necessarily determined by large scale cultural or social conflict, but by the simple inability of the self to ever come to any conclusive discovery regarding the other.
-Kathryn LaBelle, Kerry Brennan, Will Hoey, Alan Yanchak (The master of disaster, the king of sting, the Count of Monte Fisto)
Foreignness is inherent is everyone. As we learned from The Secret Sharer, there are aspects of ourselves that we struggle with controlling and understanding. This initial fear of the “otherness” within ourselves leads us to band together with those who appear to be similar to us on the surface in order to create a sense of identity and belonging. Yet as many different groups of seemingly similar people combine, they begin to reject other groups as a way of reinforcing their own identities. Thus, when individuals from separate cultures confront each other, they initially try to interpret them within the context of their own culture, especially within their society’s religion. This approach can lead to a variety of outcomes: cultural integration, a rejection of the other, or even violence.
In Paradise on Earth, Henri Baudet describes the Europeans’ mistaken perception of Ethiopia. Initially, they viewed Ethiopia as a valuable Christian ally in the battle against Islam. Much of their understanding of Ethiopia was rooted in the European legend of Prester John, an Ethiopian priest-king. They interpreted Ethiopian society within the context of the Catholic religion, believing that since the Ethiopians were a more “primitive” society, they were closer to God and living in a state of paradise. They embodied the European idea of the “noble savage,” “the myth of the natural and fundamental goodness of primitive man” removed from the degeneration of modern day culture (10). However, when they actually encountered the Ethiopians, the Europeans found their understanding to be quite mistaken. When Portugal sent Pedro and Alfonso to Ethiopia to reestablish ties with the “Christian kingdom,” they were graciously received but not allowed to leave the kingdom, because the Ethiopians viewed “others” as a threat and sought to neutralize the threat to stability by simply turning the “others” into “self.” The European myth of an Ethiopian paradise open to Europeans was shattered. As soon as the European preconception of Ethiopia was disproved, the nation was quickly abandoned as a potential cultural and religious ally. The myth of the “noble savage” was foisted onto Easterners, reinvented as the “bon Oriental.” Thus Baudet shows how easily the “other” can be discarded when it fails to align with the culture of those encountering the “other.”
Perhaps the best example of how the confrontation with the “other” turns violent can be found in Todorov’s description of Columbus’ discovery of the new world. According to Todorov, Columbus’ true purpose in sailing west was not personal wealth, but rather to bring Christianity to what he thought was the Orient. Even though he did not reach the East as he had hoped, Columbus remained committed to the religious purpose of his journey. He wanted to convert the Native Americans to Christianity and even willed whatever fortunes he gained from the New World to fund a crusade to free Jerusalem. Unfortunately, not all of the Spanish shared Columbus’s interpretation of the “other.” As knowledge and rumors of the New World grew among Europeans, the European understanding of the Native “other” shifted and turned violent. Because it became more profitable for the Europeans to view the Natives through an economic rather than religious context, Columbus’ noble idea was abandoned and replaced with violence and exploitation. So while viewing the “other” through a religious context may lead to a more humane encounter, such an approach will only be adopted so long as a more valuable approach does not appear, even if that alternative requires violence.
On the other hand, interpreting the “other” through the context of one’s own culture can be a vehicle for communication between societies. Songlines explains how the Aboriginals can communicate with one another across a songline, even through language differences. The rhythm and cadence of the ancient song echo the geographical landscape that the songline traverses. The traditional music, in this way, appeals to an almost innate sense of language, something beyond a particular tribe’s culture yet important to each tribe. The music of the songline conveys an intimate knowledge of the land and the living tradition that the land sustains and allows people from backgrounds as diverse as the geography of Australia to understand each other, and, incorporate other tribes into their sense of “self.”
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