第二章 基本概念

世界正如人類所感知的那樣，在一定程度上是由語言形成的。然而，就語言與非語言現實之間的關系如何而言，并沒有一致的看法。在20世紀30年代，兩位語言人類學家提出了“薩丕爾—沃爾夫假說”。這個假說指出語言能在不同群體的生活世界之間產生決定性的差異。根據薩丕爾（Edward Sapir）和沃爾夫（Benjamin Lee Whorf）的研究，北美一些地區的語言——霍皮語是最著名的例子——包含很少的名詞或表示事物的詞語，并且有很多動詞或表示運動和過程的詞語。因此，他們推斷與講英語的人的典型生活世界相比，霍皮語一定包含著更少的物體和更多的動作。這種具有許多追隨者的觀點（盡管有些修正的模型），遭到了另一些觀點的挑戰，后者認為各地的人一般以同樣的方式感知世界，各種語言具有許多共同概念。

當一個人討論抽象現象時，術語無疑會強烈地影響一個人所感知的事物和方式。當然，一位印度教徒意識到許多神圣事物的存在并相信轉世，對于生死觀念就會與穆斯林不一樣，后者只相信一種神并認為人死以后會進入永恒和超驗的天堂。此外，這些觀念可能會在一定程度上顯露出他們的日常生活。同樣，在專業研究方面，特殊的概念使我們可以用一定的方式看到某些事實，但代價是排除其他方面的現實或無法接近真相。例如，假若一個人使用親屬關系作為中心概念研究社會，與那些使用諸如父權制或族性之類概念的人相比，就必然會發現其他的關系和問題。

研究者個人的興趣、所受的訓練和——至少是充滿希望的——他所仔細審查的社會，影響著其對概念和理論方法的選擇。理論和概念、觀察和方法論的選擇、田野工作期間和田野考察結束之后，它們之間有著持續的相互作用。下一章我將會論證這一點。然而，某些概念對于人類學研究是如此重要，以至于人們必須涉及它們，而不管他的研究主題如何。在討論研究方法和理論之前，我將在本章先介紹這些概念。

The Key Concepts

The world, as it is perceived by human beings, is to a certain extent shaped by language. However, there is no agreement as to just what the relationship between language and non-linguistic reality is. In the 1930s, the ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis'was launched by two linguistically oriented anthropologists. The hypothesis proposes that language creates decisive differences between the respective life-worlds different groups inhabit. Certain North American languages—the Hopi language is the most famous example—contained, according to Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf, few nouns or words denoting things, and many verbs or words denoting movement and process. As a result, they reasoned, the Hopi world must contain fewer objects and more movement than, say, the life-world typically inhabited by someone who spoke English. This view, which has many adherents (albeit always in a modified form), has been challenged by the view that humans everywhere generally perceive the world in the same ways, and that all languages have many concepts in common.

There is no doubt that when one discusses abstract phenomena, terminology strongly influences what one perceives and how one perceives it. Of course, a Hindu, who is aware of the existence of many divine beings and believes in reincarnation, has ideas about life and death which differ from those of a Muslim, who worships only one god and believes in an eternal, transcendent paradise after death. These ideas are, moreover, likely to inform their everyday lives to a certain extent. In academic studies, similarly, particular concepts enable us to see certain facts in a certain way, at the expense of excluding other aspects of, or approaches to reality. If, for example, one studies a society using kinship as the central concept, one will inevitably discover other connections and problems than one would if one had instead used concepts such as patriarchy or ethnicity.

The choice of concepts and theoretical approaches is influenced both by the researcher's personal interests, his or her training, and—hopefully not least—the society under scrutiny. There is a continuous interaction between theories and concepts, observations and methodological choices, both during and after fieldwork. This will be demonstrated in the next chapter. However, certain concepts are so fundamental to anthropological research that one must relate to them regardless of the topic under scrutiny, and I shall introduce some of them in this chapter, before moving on to research methods and theories.

人

這似乎是一個簡單和明確的詞匯，好像任何人即刻都可以明白。也許真是這樣。不過，盡管每個人都知道人是什么，但他們并非都有同樣的知識。當你看另一個人或看鏡子里的人時，你所看到的東西取決于你來自何方。實際上，一些最令人振奮的人類學研究所涉及的東西，恰恰揭示了這些差異，也就是人這個概念的變化。

在西方社會，人通常作為一個獨特的個體、整體和不可分的東西被感知。在生命過程中，單獨的個體作出了大量的決定或選擇，并不得不對其結果負責。當一些人去世時，他們不再作為個體而存在，但在西方社會，至于其后會發生什么，則沒有一致的意見。有人認為死人會莫名其妙地作為無形世界里的幽靈繼續活著，而另外一些人則假設去世就是人的終結。現代西方關于人的概念常被描述為利己主義，這不是自高自大的意思，而是作為一種視角，將自我或個體放在“舞臺”的中央。

在印度的村莊里，關于人的概念非常不同。印度大部分人是印度教徒。他們相信轉世輪回，認為每一個剛出生的嬰孩都是死人轉世，并不是一個全新的人。此外，一個人出生也不是作為一個完全獨立的個體，而是一個特定種姓的成員。進一步講，一個人的生活取決于他的因緣和法則（命運），也同樣取決于他自己的決定。當一個人死亡時，生、死和再生的輪回又重新開始，一個人的重生取決于今生他所做的善事與惡行。這種關于人的概念常常被描述為社會中心論，意味著社會或更加廣泛的社區才是宇宙的中心，而不是個人自我。

PERSON

This appears to be a simple and unambiguous word, which everybody understands immediately. Maybe so. However, although everybody knows what a person is, they do not all have the same knowledge. What it is that you see when you look at another human or into the mirror, depends on where you come from. Some of the most inspiring anthropological studies are in fact concerned with revealing exactly these differences; variations in the concept of the person.

In western society, the person is usually perceived as an unique individual, whole and indivisible. During the course of life, the single individual makes a number of individual decisions or choices, and has to take responsibility for their consequences. When someone dies, they cease to exist as individuals, but in western societies, there is no general agreement as to what happens afterwards. Some hold that dead persons somehow continue to live as spiritual beings in an invisible world, while others assume that death is the end of you. The modern western notion of the person is often described as egocentric, not in the meaning of egotistic, but as a perspective where the ego, or individual, is at the centre of the stage.

The notion of the person is very different in an Indian village. Most of the population are Hindus and believe in reincarnation, which entails that every newborn baby is a re-born person and not an entirely new one. One is, moreover, not born as an unattached individual, but as a member of a particular caste. Further, one's life is as much decided by one's karma and dharma (fate, destiny) as by one's own decisions. When someone dies, the cycle of birth, death and rebirth begins anew, and just how someone is reborn depends on their good and bad deeds in this life. This concept of the person is often described as sociocentric, which means that it is society or the wider community, not the ego, that is at the centre of the universe.

在非洲的村莊，傳統宗教占據很強硬的立場，這里可以找到第三種關于人的概念，但同時祖先的靈魂也在場；人們可以向他們尋求建議，但要冒著被他們懲罰的風險。去世的人自身也可以變成祖先的靈魂，很多時候靈媒（可以與祖先的靈魂溝通的活人）可以執行相當多的神圣權力。

在美拉尼西亞的某些地方，會提到第四種實例，另一種關于人的概念卻很普遍。顯而易見，許多美拉尼西亞人采用某種特定的方式看待生死之間的轉換。關于人的概念傾向于相關性，也就是組成一個人的東西是他或她與別人的關系。因此，一個不再呼吸的人，在他或她與別人的關系終結之前，就不會被人視為死人。在認定這個人真正死亡之前，必須先解決債務，還要舉行一些儀式。實際上，一些寫到印度和美拉尼西亞的人類學家建議，談到作為個體的人時，不要使用個體這個稱謂，因為他們實際上是可分的，是通過與他人的連接而存在的。

性別本身可以被視為一個關鍵術語，但是也可以將其看作與人有關的概念的特殊實例，因為很難或者說不可能不用性別去談論人。在所有現存的社會區分中，沒有哪個能比性別更加普遍。換句話說，所有的人都可以區分成男人和女人，性別關系在各地人群構成中是一個重要的因素。男人只有在涉及女人時才會是男人，女人也只有在與男人對比時才是女人。迄今為止，性別是一般概念。但是正如人這個一般概念會發生變化一樣，性別也可以用多種方式來理解和處理。

In African villages where traditional religion is strong, a third conceptualisation of the person can be found. There, persons are typically accorded individual freedom and accountability, but at the same time, the ancestral spirits are present; one may ask them for advice, and one risks being punished by them. Persons who die become ancestral spirits themselves, and in many cases, spiritual mediums (living persons who are able to communicate with the ancestral spirits) can exert considerable secular power.

In parts of Melanesia, to mention a fourth example, yet another conceptualisation of the person is common. Notably, many Melanesians view the transition between life and death in a particular way. The concept of the person tends to be relational, which is to say that what constitutes a person is his or her relationships with others. A person who no longer breathes is therefore not considered dead before all his or her relations with others have been brought to an end. Debts must be settled, and certain ritual acts must be carried out, before the person in question is truly dead. Some of the anthropologists who write about India and Melanesia have suggested that, rather than using the term individual, we should speak of the persons in question as dividuals, since they are in fact divisible, created through their bonds to other persons.

Gender can be seen as a key term in itself, but it may also be dealt with as a particular instance of the concept of the person, since it is difficult, not to say impossible, to think about a person without gender. Of all the social distinctions that exist, none is more universal than gender. Put differently; all peoples distinguish between men and women, and the gender relationship is an essential element in the constitution of the person everywhere. Men can only be men in relation to women;women are only women in contrast to men. Thus far gender is universal. But just as the general concept of the person varies, gender is understood and dealt with in many different ways.

通常需要區分性與性別，盡管這種區分在某些領域多少有點過時（在性別的生物組成被質疑的地方）。性常常是指在體型、生殖器的形狀等方面可以遺傳的差異；性別涉及男女兩性區分的社會建構。在后面這個領域，社會科學家研究的主題出現了令人感興趣的變化（有人認為這只是有趣的相似性）。在生產領域、私人空間和許多社會里，男女兩性之間的社會分工存在很大的不同，只是在最近50年里，性別關系才發生了急劇的變化。20世紀50年代，在大部分西方社會，大部分婦女是家庭主婦或兼職的工人，而現在大部分婦女卻在家庭之外全職工作。20世紀50年代和60年代，歐洲和北美已為人父的男性，很少知道換尿布和煮飯之類的家務事。

包括人類學家在內的許多社會學家，一直對兩性關系內在的權力感興趣，這常常通過婦女受壓迫的習慣術語來描述。也許有人會說男人往往要比女人行使更多的權力，而反過來的說法卻很少。在大多數社會里，男子總是占據重要的政治和宗教位置，而且往往是男子控制正式的經濟。有些社會規定婦女在公共場合出現時，必須遮蓋住身體和臉蛋。另一方面，婦女通常可以行使相當多的非正式權力，尤其是在家庭范圍之內。此外，人類學家在摸清社會的各個方面之前，無法清楚地說明婦女受到壓迫，包括婦女（和男人）如何感知他們的地位。不可駁斥這么一種可能性，即西非（或中東）的某些婦女認為“被解放的”西非婦女受到了更多的壓迫——因為后者——具有更大的職業壓力和需要，以追求良好的和其他的期望。

當他們研究正在經歷變遷的社會時，最重要的是考察不同利益群體之間價值觀的沖突和緊張，尤其考慮主要的群體，這或許是當今大部分人類學家在做的事。通常，這些沖突通過性別關系展現出來。在較為典型的情況下，年輕的婦人在經濟上能自給自足，因而會要求在人的現代概念范圍之內的個人自由權利，這與她們的母親形成了對比；對傳統和另一種關于人的更加整體和社會中心論的概念，年紀更大的一代人則盡力保持他們的忠誠。在涉及移民社區時，西歐的新聞界經常描述這種沖突，但它們在其他社會中也能看到，只是用了不同的偽裝。

It is customary to distinguish between sex and gender, although the distinction has gone somewhat out of fashion in some quarters (where the biological component of gender is questioned). Sex generally refers to inherited differences in body size, shape of the genitals and so on; gender is concerned with the social construction of male/female distinctions. In this latter area, that is the subject matter for social scientists who study the topic, there are interesting variations (and, some would argue, just as interesting similarities). The division of labour between men and women varies enormously both in the sphere of production and in the private sphere, and in many societies, gender relations have changed dramatically only in the last 50 years. In most western societies, the majority of women were housewives or part time workers in the 1950s, while the majority are now fully employed outside the home. European and North American men who became fathers in the 1950s and 1960s rarely knew anything about diapers or cooking.

Many social scientists, including anthropologists, have been interested in the power inherent in gender relations, often described through the idiom of female oppression. It can be argued that men usually tend to exert more power over women than vice versa. In most societies, men generally hold the most important political and religious positions, and very often, men control the formal economy. In some societies, it may even be prescribed for women to cover their body and face when they appear in the public sphere. On the other hand, women are often capable of exerting considerable informal power, not least in the domestic sphere. Anthropologists cannot state unequivocally that women are oppressed before they have investigated all aspects of their society, including how the women (and men) themselves perceive their situation. One cannot dismiss the possibility that certain women in western Asia (or the Middle East) see the ‘liberated'western woman as more oppressed—by professional career pressure, demands to look good and other expectations—than themselves.

When studying societies undergoing change, which perhaps most anthropologists do today, it is important to look at the value conflicts and tensions between different interest groups that are particularly central. Often, these conflicts are expressed through gender relations. In a typical situation, young women, who in contrast to their mothers may be economically self-sufficient, can demand their right to individual freedom within a modern conceptualisation of the person, while the older generation tries to retain their loyalty towards tradition and another, more holistic or sociocentric notion of the person. This kind of conflict is described regularly in the press in western Europe, with reference to immigrant communities, but it can be identified under different guises in many other societies as well.

社會

大部分社會科學家每天都在使用“社會”這個詞，但他們很少費神去對之定義。要定義“社會”一詞也不是一件易事。在日常語言中，社會這個詞傾向于與“國家”同義。人們會談到挪威社會、英國社會和南非社會等。但是這種定義經不起仔細的推敲。首先，每個國家（即使是最小的國家）都包含一些地方社區，可能因為種種意圖憑他們本身的實力也可以將其視為社會。其次，許多國家包含講各種語言的不同族群，他們之間的接觸有限，而且在文化上的共性很少。最后，如果國家實行集權主義或腐敗，或者社會成員僅僅感覺國家沒有代表他們的利益，他們通常就會覺得國家是他們的敵人。

給“社會”下一個不是十分精確的定義，還是完全有可能的。例如，可以說社會由很多人組成，他們長期在一起生活和工作，因此覺得他們屬于一個道德共同體，這強制他們彼此之間采用得體的行為。這種定義似乎更適合面對面交往的小型社區，而不是更加抽象的大型社區，當然這也沒有什么錯。畢竟，人類學家研究的典型社會都是小規模的。唯一的問題是地方社區總是更大系統的一部分——它們依賴對外的貿易，從外部接收婦女或牧師，也可能或多或少被遙遠的國家機構有效地統治，年輕人可能會穿梭于大城市之間工作或求學，等等。在這種背景下，不可能在社會周邊劃出一條清晰和明確的邊界。

SOCIETY

This word is used by most social scientists (and others) every day, but they rarely bother to define it. Nor is it easy to do so. In everyday language, the term society tends to be synonymous with ‘state'. One speaks of Norwegian society, British society, South African society and so on. But a definition of this kind does not withstand closer scrutiny. First, every state (even the smallest ones) contains several local communities, which may for several purposes be seen as societies in their own right. Moreover,many states are composed of different ethnic groups who speak different languages, who have limited contact and who may have little in common, culturally speaking. Third, the members of society often perceive the state as their enemy (if it is totalitarian), corrupt or they simply feel that it does not represent their interests.

It is perfectly possible to propose a less rigid definition of a society as well. One may, for example, state that a society consists of people who have lived and worked together for a long time, and who therefore feel that they belong to a moral community which obliges them to behave properly towards one another. This kind of definition seems to be more suitable for small communities based on face-to-face interaction than for larger, more abstract societies, and there is nothing wrong with that. After all, societies typically studied by anthropologists have been small. The only problem is that local communities are always part of larger systems; they are dependent on external trade, they may receive their women or their priests from outside, they are perhaps governed more or less efficiently by a remote state administration, the youths may travel back and forth to the big city to work or study, and so on. In this kind of setting, it is impossible to draw a clear and unambiguous boundary around the society.

盡管某些政治家的言論的大意是“沒有諸如社會之類的事情”，但在社會的概念上，這就是當今所面臨的問題。這些問題表明與近幾十年人類學的發展有關的事情，但也說明了世界的互聯性與日俱增。在19世紀后半葉，目前社會科學的許多概念得到了發展，早期社會學家和人類學家簡單和隨便地區分出了兩類社會：大社會和小社會；或者是我們自己的社會和別人的社會。1861年，律師梅因（Henry Maine）寫過一本重要的著作《原始社會》，對身份社會和契約社會進行了區分。在身份社會中，每個人與他人都有著固定的關系，這取決于出身、家庭背景和他在社會中的等級和地位。相比之下，契約社會以個體之間的自愿協議為基礎，一個人在社會里的地位取決于他的個人成就，而不是取決于他的出身歸屬。梅因認為契約社會比身份社會更加復雜。

同一時期活躍的一些其他理論家，對小型/簡單/傳統社會與大型/復雜/現代社會作了相似的區分。或許，最有影響力的區分是社會學家滕尼斯（Ferdinand T?nnies）對社區和社會的比較。社區是一個地方共同體，人們憑借共同的經歷屬于其中，并建立在傳統道義和個人熟悉的基礎之上。另一方面，法理社會是更大規模的匿名社會，具有典型的現代性，國家和其他權力機構大部分取代了家庭與鄰里的角色。實際上，滕尼斯描寫了從農業社會向工業社會的轉變，并明顯相信法理社會的生活要由一個更加有幫助的、具有功利邏輯的行為來管理，而不同于由規范來驅動的更多群體中心論的禮俗社會。

那么，社會是什么呢？按照梅因、滕尼斯和其他人的說法，我們必須首先區分小規模社會與大型社會、簡單社會和復雜社會，還有以親屬關系和互惠性為基礎的社會，以及通過別的機制進行整合的社會。盡管20世紀中期之后，少數人類學家不加批判地采用了這類簡單的二分法，但很清楚的是人類學家研究的很多社會都與滕尼斯的社會范疇有共同之處。另一方面，許多社會與之沒有共性，并表明了類別上的嚴格限制。例如，印度的村落既可以被視為社區，也可以被看作更大社會的組成部分。在非洲的許多地方，傳統社會組織具有高度的靈活性；它為了回應變化的環境需要擴展和收縮。通常，社會生活集中于村落，但通過商貿和沖突，村落也可以被整合到更大的系統之中。

Such are some of the problems experienced today with the concept of society, notwithstanding certain politicians' statements to the effect that ‘there is no such thing as society'. These problems indicate something about the development of anthropology in recent decades, but they also say something about the increasing interconnectedness of the world. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, when many of the current concepts in social science were developed, many of the early sociologists and anthropologists distinguished simply and unceremoniously between two kinds of society: the big and the small; or our own, and all the others. Henry Maine, a lawyer who wrote an important book about ‘primitive society' in 1861, distinguished between status societies and contract societies. In the status society, each person had fixed relationships to others, which were determined by birth, family background and the ensuing rank and position in society. The contract societies were, by contrast, based on voluntary agreements between individuals, and one's standing in society depended on personal achievement, not on birth ascription. Maine regarded contract societies as being more complex than status societies.

Several other theorists who were active in the same period established similar distinctions between small/simple/traditional and large/complex/modern societies. The most influential such distinction is, perhaps, the sociologist Ferdinand T?nnies' contrast between Gemeinschaft (community) and Gesellschaft (society). The Gemeinschaft is a local community where people belong by virtue of shared experiences, based on traditional obligations and personal acquaintance. Gesellschaft, on the other hand, is the anonymous large-scale society typical of modernity, where the state and other powerful institutions have largely taken over the roles of family and neighbourhood. In fact, T?nnies wrote about the transition from agrarian to industrial society, and he clearly believed that life in the Gesellschaft was governed by a more instrumental, more utilitarian logic of action than the norm-driven, more sociocentric Gemeinschaft.

So what is a society? According to Maine, T?nnies and others, we must first of all distinguish between the small and the large, the simple and the complex, those which are based on kinship and reciprocity, and those that are integrated through other mechanisms. Although few anthropologists working after the mid-twentieth century would uncritically adopt a simple dichotomy of this kind, it is clear that many of the societies studied by anthropologists have many elements in common with T ?nnies' category of Gemeinschaft. On the other hand, many do not, and indicate severe limitations with the categorisation. Indian villages, for example, can be seen both as Gemeinschaften and as parts of a larger Gesellschaft. In many parts of Africa, traditional social organisation was highly flexible; it expanded and contracted in response to shifting circumstances. Usually, social life would converge on the village, but through trade and conflict, villages were also integrated into larger systems.

很久以來，人類學已經拋棄了類似這樣的簡單二分法。世界遠遠要復雜得多，社會類型之間的變動也很大，將其分成兩種互相排斥的社會類型，這樣的分類意味深長。此外，正如前面討論的那樣，人們無法一勞永逸地劃出社會的邊界。因此，說人類學家尤其是社會人類學家研究社會生活，會比說他們研究社會更準確。

同時，將社會視為有邊界的實體，往往會很確切而且很有必要。描繪社會的一般標準是政治權力。按照這種觀點，一個社會就是人們的一個集合體，能夠有效地隸屬于同一個政治機構。但即使是這種描述也存在問題。在現代國家，可以說各種居民都生活在同一個社會里。然而，地方政府和一些國家也同時不同程度地執行政治權力——尤其是在歐洲——并被整合到更高層次的政治共同體之中。另外，在多民族國家，族群的領袖有時候比國家的權力更大。還有一些國家的整合程度很弱，尤其是在非洲，以至于政治權力的可操作層面就在更低、更具有地方性的層次上。這樣，國家的實際權力就要遠低于它在紙上顯示的權力。

雖然社會的概念缺乏清晰度，但這個詞毫無疑問是必不可少的。在日常語言中，這個詞可表示地方社區、大規模的社會和全球社會，這些都是實際存在的實體，而且存在于不同的系統層次上。人類被整合進（也就是參與和貢獻于）一些社會系統，有些是大規模的，還有些是小規模的。當人類學家描述他們的研究點時，規模的層次取決于手邊的問題。如果他要研究祖魯人的巫術，就要采用特別的方式來描繪這個系統；如果研究焦點是南非的法律制度，就有必要采用另一種描述；如果主題是祖魯人與南非白人之間的關系，第三種社會系統就與其有關了。所有這些分支體系（還有很多其他）的存在，都可以被看作社會。

Simple dichotomies such as these have long since been abandoned in anthropology. The world is far too complex, and variation between societal types is too vast, for a categorisation dividing it into two mutually exclusive kinds of society to be meaningful. In addition, as argued above, one cannot once and for all draw the boundaries of a society. For this reason, it is more accurate to state that anthropologists, particularly social anthropologists, study social life rather than saying that they study societies.

At the same time, it is often both accurate and necessary to regard societies as entities with boundaries. A common criterion for delineating societies is political power. A society, according to this view, is an assemblage of people effectively subjected to the same political apparatus. But even this kind of delineation is problematic. In a modern state, one can claim that the inhabit-ants in many respects live in the same society. Yet, at the same time, political power is also exerted, to varying degrees, by local government, and several states—not least in Europe—are also integrated in political communities at higher levels. Moreover, in ethnically plural states, the ethnic leadership may sometimes be de facto more powerful than the state. Also, there are states, not least in Africa, which are weakly integrated, such that the operational level of political power is located at a lower, more local (often kinship—or locality—based) level. In such cases, the actual power of the state is much less than it may appear on paper.

In spite of the lack of clarity in the concept of society, the word is doubtless necessary. In everyday language, words denoting local communities, large-scale society and global society exist, and all refer to actually existing entities, existing at different systemic levels. Humans are integrated in (that is, they participate in and contribute to) several social systems, some operating at a large scale, others at a small scale. When anthropologists delineate their field of study, the level of scale is determined by the issues at hand. If one is about to do a study of witchcraft among the Zulu, one delineates the system in a particular way; if the focus of the study is the legal system of South Africa, another delineation is necessary; and if the topic is the relationship between Zulus and Afrikaners, a third social system becomes relevant. All of these partial systems (and many others) exist, and all may be seen as societies.

文化

這里討論的第三個概念與前面兩個一樣重要，也不會更容易把握。實際上，有人認為文化的概念是人類學里唯一最難辦的術語。1952年，克魯伯（A.L.Kroeber）和克拉克洪（Clyde Kluckhohn）出版了一本著作——《文化：概念與定義的批判性回顧》，對于學科中現有的文化定義進行了概述。他們辨認了162種文化的概念。不可否認的是，其中有些概念十分相似，但是他們不得不推斷，似乎不存在一種文化概念的定義，能夠讓大多數人類學家都認可。

文化這個術語常常被用作社會的同義詞，比如一個人在日常語言中會談到“別的文化”。同時，區別文化與社會的觀點似乎很廣泛，就像“多元文化社會”這樣的表述。如果這樣的社會存在，換句話說就可能有一個社會，但有多種文化。盡管這種說話方式在新聞術語和口語中富有意義，但在人類學研究中卻太不準確而無法使用，即使諸如“多元文化社會”之類的術語，暗示了與人類學問題有關的事情。

在文化的定義中，有一個最古老、最有名的定義源自英國人類學家泰勒，他在1871年對文化的定義如下：“按照最廣泛的民族志定義來看，文化或文明是一個復合的整體，包括知識、信仰、道德、風俗和作為社會成員的人所獲得的能力和習慣。”很多人將之視為一個非常有用的定義，盡管——或可能因為——它有廣泛和普遍的特征。在關于文化的概念中，泰勒囊括了他能想到的各種“能力和習慣”，而且還遠遠不止這些。之后，使用人類學意義的詞匯來定義文化的各種努力，就已經沒有那么包羅萬象了。20世紀60年代，解釋人類學的杰出代言人格爾茨認為，文化是通過公共交流來表達的共同意義。換句話說，共享的文化并不需要每個人恰好獲得同樣的知識和技能，但是共享一種文化的人也會共享一種世界觀，并且在同種文字及其隱喻的意思方面，能說同樣的語言。

因此，文化滲透于各種人類的活動中。一些人或許還在想經濟及政治與文化關聯甚少：經濟與實用性有關；而政治關乎權力。但是這種描述當然不可如此輕易地簡單化。文化價值觀不同于社會經濟生活中能夠感知貴重物品的決定，文化環境影響政治精英的行為。文化是人類活動的一個方面，而不僅僅是一個區域。

CULTURE

The third concept to be discussed is just as important as the two previous ones,and it is not easier to grasp. Some would actually argue that the concept of culture is the single most difficult term in anthropology. In 1952, A.L.Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn published the book Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Defi nitions, which gave an overview of extant definitions of culture in the discipline. They identified 162 different definitions. Some were, admittedly, quite similar, but they had to conclude that there does not exist a definition of the culture concept that most anthropologists seem to agree upon.

Quite often, the term culture is used as a synonym for society, as when one speaks, in everyday language, about ‘other cultures'. At the same time, a view distinguishing the two also seems widespread, as in terms such as ‘multicultural society'. If such societies exist, it is in other words possible to have one society, but several cultures. Although this way of speaking can be meaningful in the simplified terminology of journalism and colloquial speech, it is too inaccurate to be useful in anthropological research, even if terms such as ‘multicultural society'are suggestive of relevant anthropological issues.

One of the oldest and most famous definitions of culture stems from the English anthropologist EB Tylor, who defined culture as follows on the first page of his book Culture, published in 1871: ‘Culture or Civilization, taken in its widest ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society'. Many have seen this definition as a rather useful one, in spite of—or perhaps because of—its very wide and general character. Tylor includes every ‘capability and habit'he can think of, and then some, in his concept of culture. Later attempts at defining culture in the anthropological sense of the word have been less wide-ranging. The leading spokesman for interpretive anthropology, Clifford Geertz, suggested in the 1960s that culture be seen as shared meanings expressed through public communication. Shared culture does not, in other words, entail that everybody has obtained exactly the same knowledge and acquired exactly the same skills, but that those who share a culture also share a world-view and speak the same language in both a literal and a metaphoric sense.

Culture, thus understood, permeates all human activity. Some may still think that economics and politics have little to do with culture; economics is about utility, and politics is about power. But of course, such a description would be unforgivably simplistic. Cultural values, which differ, determine which valuables are perceived as desirable in the economic life of a society, and cultural circumstances regulate the behaviour of political elites. Culture is an aspect of human activity, not merely a sector.

大部分人覺得格爾茨關于文化的概念，比泰勒的文化概念用起來更舒服。但是必須立即承認，事情要比它迄今看起來的樣子更加復雜。文化的概念比社會的概念爭議更大，多年來人類學家一直對此有批判，他們認為沒有這個詞可能會更好（我懷疑他們不會這樣，但是看庫伯[Adam Kuper]在1999年的文化定義，卻有不同的結論）。在人類學領域，對文化概念的批判已經成了相當標準的訓練，從碩士學位論文到民族志，只有少數幾個論據在文獻中被反復提到。事實上，核心論據的數量似乎可以限制在四個之內。

第一種異議關注文化這個詞的復數形式。一方面，文化可作為自然的對立面被概念化。按照這種觀點，所有的人都平等地得到教化；文化的一切東西都是習得的，比如語言、宗教等，以使我們人類和文化相應地合并到人性里。另一方面，文化可以采用復數形式，而且文化突然間以某些事物顯現，這是將人性分開而不是統一。這時注意力就從唯一的人類轉向使群體互相區分的事物。

在整個20世紀的人類學界，這種將文化概念化的方式占據了主導地位，尤其是因為博厄斯的文化相對主義和馬林諾夫斯基的田野方法，焦點似乎都在單個的社會上。一些人類學家對相似性更有興趣，而不是差異性，他們希望重新理解文化，將其視為使人類統一的東西。按照這種觀點，文化的實際表達明顯是獨特和可變的，但在更深的層面上，他們是指某些普遍的事物。

第二種異議關注描述的問題，它與對于社會概念的一般批判有著很多共性。在每一個人類群體中，無論怎樣勾畫總會有相當大的變化，而且不太容易看到群體之間的系統差異。在某些方面，一個群體內的變化會比群體之間的差異更大。這個簡單的觀點很容易通過觀察得到支撐，尤其是在現代復雜的社會。在某些方面，西歐的城市中產階級互相之間具有更多的共性，這超過了他們與距離自己國家遙遠的地方的人之間的共性。而且，外來移民帶來了一種新的文化動力，從各種來源獲得新的推動力混合體。在新的國家里成長的移民子女，可能在家里講旁遮普語，而在外面卻講德語，還會吸收一種文化保留節目，它既不是巴基斯坦的，也不是德國的，而是兩者兼而有之。

Most of those who feel comfortable with the concept of culture use it in ways that have more in common with Geertz' definition than with Tylor's. But it must be admitted that the situation is more complicated than it may appear so far. The concept of culture is even more controversial than the concept of society, and it has been criticised for many years by anthropologists who are convinced that they would be better off without it (which I suspect they won't, but see Adam Kuper's Culture, 1999, for a different conclusion). The critique of the concept of culture has become a fairly standard exercise in parts of anthropology, and a small cluster of arguments are presented again and again in the literature, ranging from MA dissertations to monographs. In fact, it seems possible to limit the number of core arguments to four.

The first objection concerns the pluralisation of the word; cultures. On the one hand, culture can be conceptualised as the opposite of nature. According to this view, all people are equally cultured; it is culture i.e. everything that is learned, such as language, religion and so on, that makes us human, and culture accordingly unites humanity. On the other hand, culture may be used in the plural, and suddenly, culture appears as something which divides humanity instead of uniting it. The attention is shifted from the uniquely human to that which makes groups different from each other.

This way of conceptualising culture was dominant in anthropology throughout the twentieth century, not least because of Boas'cultural relativism and Malinowski's field methodology, focusing as it did on the single society. Some anthropologists, more interested in similarities than in differences, wish to return to an understanding of culture seen as that which unites humanity. According to this view, the actual expressions of culture are obviously unique and variable, but at a deeper level, they refer to something universal.

Objection number two concerns the problem of delineation, and it has much in common with criticisms of the concept of society. Within every human group, however delineated, there is considerable variation, and it is rarely easy to see what are the systematic differences between groups. In some respects, the variations within a group can be greater than the variations between groups. This simple point can easily be supported by observation, not least in modern, complex societies. In certain respects, the urban middle classes in western Europe can be said to have more in common with each other than with people from remote parts of their own countries. Moreover, immigration has brought with it a new kind of cultural dynamics, which creates new mixtures of impulses deriving from a variety of sources. The children of immigrants, who have grown up in the new country, may speak Punjabi at home and German outside the home, and draw on a cultural repertoire which is neither Pakistani nor German, but both.

第三個例子可以拿商業大眾文化作為出發點。來自全世界的青少年都獲得了同樣的文化參照物，因為在其他事物中，他們聽到了相似的音樂，看了同樣的（美國）電影；人們可能想當然地認為他們會與父輩分享。當代世界充滿了復雜的文化形式，以及文化要素的跨國流動，這使我們比以前更難在文化之間劃出邊界。許多人類學家將文化描述成動態和流動的過程，其中漢內茲（UIF Hannerz,1992）最具有影響力。他將文化視為無邊界的全球網絡，但是提出網絡具有自身的節點（或交換臺）及不同密度的區域，與此同時存在著文化領域或局部領域，它們可以保持相對穩定和空間上的定位。

第三種異議關注文化概念的政治用途。日益清楚的是經典人類學關于文化的概念——文化相對主義的概念——已經被用于促進特定群體的主張，以區別出少數民族并通過好斗的民族主義保護其排外性。文化概念的這種用途，將社會現有的復雜性減少到了少數幾個簡單的類別，這已經激勵了許多在政治上自覺的人類學家，去用特別的批判方式審查自己的文化概念。經典文化概念用于政治的最著名的（也可能是最極端的）例子，或許是南非的種族隔離制度。

從1948年到1994年，南非國家實行一種種族隔離的政治制度（在南非語中意味著受冷落），它可以確保不同的人群不會未受控制地混合在一起。種族隔離的最終目標在于以種族、族性和假想的文化為基礎建立獨立的國家。種族隔離制度的背景是大部分白人少數群體，在經濟上統治了占人口多數的黑人群體，沒有給予他們平等的機會和權利；但是這種制度在意識形態上的辯護證據，與文化相對主義具有可怕的相似性。實際上，南非的幾個人類學家也是種族隔離制度最直言不諱的擁護者，而且這種制度的智力建筑師韋納爾（Werner Eiselen ），是一位人類學教授。（必須附帶說上一句，在公正的名義之下，南非許多人類學家坦率地批評過種族隔離制度。）由于多種原因，種族隔離制度背后的思想意識形態不足以令人相信，其中事實之一是各種群體已經居住在同一地區達數百年，而且在文化上相互之間存在影響。20世紀50年代開始，南非數千萬黑人被迫遷入所謂的家園，據稱這種身體上的隔離是他們自己的意愿，因為他們只有居住在文化上的獨立空間內，才能夠保持他們自己的文化。種族隔離的獨特性在于它將文化相對主義的意識形態，連接到一種殘忍壓迫的狀態，但事實上博厄斯學派關于文化的經典概念，很容易被用來為種族偏見和民族主義作辯護。這種發現已經導致了一種對文化概念的普遍不安，并促使他們倡導第二種異議（邊界、內部差異和變化的問題）。

A third example could take the impact of commercial mass culture as its point of departure. Adolescents from all over the world acquire some of the same cultural references since, among other things, they listen to similar music and have seen the same (mostly American) films; and one cannot take it for granted that they share those references with the parental generation. The contemporary world is teeming with mixed cultural forms and transnational flows of cultural elements, which makes it more difficult than ever before to draw boundaries between cultures. Among the many anthropologists who have described culture as a flowing, dynamic process rather than a static and thinglike entity, Ulf Hannerz(1992) is among the most influential. He regards culture as a global web of networks with no absolute boundaries, but adds that the network has its nodes (or ‘switchboards') and zones of varying density, and that there simultaneously exist cultural universes, or partial universes, which remain relatively stable and spatially localised.

The third objection concerns the political use of the concept of culture. It has become increasingly clear that the classic anthropological concept of culture—that of cultural relativism—has been used to promote particular group claims, to discriminate against minorities and to defend exclusion through aggressive nationalism. This use of the culture concept, which reduces the existing complexity of a society to a few simple categories, has inspired many politically self-conscious anthropologists to scrutinise their own culture concept in an especially critical way. The most famous (and possibly the most extreme) example of a political use of the classical culture concept is the South African apartheid system.

From 1948 to 1994, the South African state practised a politics of apartheid (which means apartness in Afrikaans), which aimed to ensure that different peoples did not mix uncontrollably. An ultimate aim of apartheid was to establish separate states based on race, ethnicity and assumed culture. The background of apartheid was the desire among a large part of the white minority to dominate the black majority economically without having to give them equal rights and opportunities; but the ideological justification of the system had uncanny resemblances to cultural relativism. In fact, several South African anthropologists were among the most outspoken defenders of the system, and the main intellectual architect behind the system, Werner Eiselen, was a professor of anthropology. (In the name of justice, it must be added that many South African anthropologists were outspoken critics of the system.) The ideology behind apartheid was unconvincing for many reasons, among them the fact that the various groups had already inhabited the same areas and had influenced each other culturally for centuries. Millions of black South Africans were forcibly moved to so-called homelands from the 1950s, and it was claimed that this physical segregation was for their own good since they could only retain their own culture if they lived in their own, culturally independent space. Apartheid was unique in that it connected a cultural relativist ideology to a brutally oppressive state, but the fact is that the classical Boasian concept of culture can easily be used to defend both ethnic prejudices and nationalism. This discovery has led to a widespread uneasiness concerning the concept of culture, and it has strengthened the case for those who advocate objection number two (the problem of boundaries, internal variation and change).

這里要提到的第四種也是最后一種異議，關注文化概念不準確和塊狀化的特征。盡管自泰勒和博厄斯以來這已經在縮減，但文化的概念似乎還是非常寬泛和模糊的。通常在媒體和日常話語中，文化往往被用來解釋沖突和問題。如果父母揍孩子一頓，人們或許會聳聳肩，然后說“這是他們的文化”；某些特定村莊里的漁夫，在出海捕魚之前，會在地上潑灑幾滴朗姆酒，他們這樣做也是“因為文化”；如果一些特別的族群在犯罪統計方面超過了應有的比例，人們也會試圖通過提及他們的“文化”來進行解釋；還有要是一個志愿團體計劃使用西非音樂和民族服飾游行，評論者可能會說他們這樣做是因為“要慶祝他們的文化”。還可以列舉出許多其他的例子。關鍵點在于為了理解世界上正在發生的事情，我們需要更加出色和微妙的術語，而不僅僅是文化概念所能提供的東西。通過流利地使用文化這個術語來解釋事件，是非常簡單的，它只能給出一種洞察力的錯覺，而不是真正的理解。另外，一種選擇包含在使用更加專業的術語之中，而不是寬泛和草率地談論文化：如果一個人提到撫養孩子（最初的社會化），人們可能會說育兒；如果一個人談到民間宗教，人們可能會說民間宗教，而不是使用包羅萬象的“文化”術語；如果一個人真正想理解復雜人口中變化的犯罪率，用“文化”術語來提供一種充分的解釋，將是一件不可思議的事情。

盡管前面提到的異議都有明顯好的意思，但可能還是有合適的理由去盡量保存一種要點。因為事實上毫無疑問，有時在人們或群體之間存在著相關和系統的顯著特征，這些差異——可能是重要的差別——是因為他們在不同的社會環境中有系統地成長。本章開頭簡要地討論過語言的區分潛能，但是也提到其他等量的差別。雖然有必要注意差異問題、邊界問題、政治濫用、變遷、流動和概念上的不準確性，但在我看來如果拋棄人們具有不同背景的概念，對人類學而言就會無異于智力自殺，因為人們在不同的環境中成長，并生活——或多或少——在不同的世界，而且使用不同的方式看待世界。在我的頭腦中，已經考慮到這些維度，比如關于美好生活的想法、性別角色、規范和制裁、公正的社會和來生等。因此，似乎有必要保留文化的概念，但在理想的世界里，則應該安全地將之鎖在一個櫥柜里，在需要的時候才拿出來。在大部分情形下，現在的文化概念正被粗糙地使用——在人類學的內部和外部——這證明沒有必要打開這個櫥柜。

The fourth and final objection to be mentioned here concerns the inaccurate and lumpy character of the culture concept. Although it has been narrowed down somewhat since Tylor and Boas, the culture concept still appears very wide and vague. Often, culture is invoked to explain conflicts and problems in the media and everyday discourses. If parents beat their children, one might perhaps shrug and say that ‘it is their culture'; if fishermen in a particular village splash a few drops of rum on the ground before they go out to sea, they do it because of ‘their culture'; if a particular ethnic group is over-represented in the crime statistics, it can be tempting to explain it by referring to ‘their culture', and if a voluntary organisation stages a parade with West African music and folk dress, commentators may say that they do it because it‘celebrates their culture'. Many other examples could have been added. The point is that in order to understand what goes on in the world, we need a finer and more nuanced terminology than that which the concept of culture can offer alone. It is far too simple, and it gives an illusion of insight rather than real understanding, to explain events by using the term ‘culture' glibly. An alternative consists in using more specific terms instead of speaking loosely about culture. If one speaks of childrearing (primary socialisation), one might say childrearing; if one speaks about folk religion, one may say it instead of using the catch-all term culture; and if one really wants to understand variable crime rates within a complex population, it is inconceivable that the term ‘culture'offers an adequate explanation.

In spite of the obvious good sense of all the objections presented above, there may be sound reasons to try to save ‘culture'. It is beyond doubt that there are relevant, systematic and sometimes striking differences between persons and groups, and that some of these differences—possibly some of the most important ones—are caused by the fact that they have grown up in systematically different social environments. At the outset of this chapter, the divisive potential of language was discussed briefly, but other differences of equal magnitude could also have been mentioned. Although it is necessary to be conscious of variation, the problem of boundaries, political misuse, change, flows and conceptual inaccuracy, it would be tantamount to intellectual suicide for anthropology if it were to discard a concept that tells us that people with different backgrounds, who have been raised in very different environments, live—to a greater or lesser extent—in different life-worlds and see the world in different ways. Thus, it seems necessary to keep the culture concept, but in an ideal world, it would be locked securely up in a cupboard and taken out only when it was needed. In most cases where the culture concept is used cursorily today—inside and outside of anthropology—it would prove unnecessary to unlock the cupboard.

轉譯

對于人類學來說，一項最重要和最迫切的任務，存在于轉譯之中，這不僅是指從一種語言向另一種語言的口頭轉譯，非口語行為的轉譯同樣重要。非常明顯的是轉譯可能會很困難。即使在兩種關系密切的語言之間，比如英語與德語，書面文本之間的轉譯也可能會有問題。如果一個人前往與他自己的社會截然不同的社會，并要用他自己的語言盡量描述那里的居民所講的東西，顯而易見這一過程會碰到很多需要解決的困難。

雖然人類學家在田野中開展訪談與觀察互動，但比較普遍的行為是開始于學習土著術語和概念的意思。這不僅是因為它本身對于理解語言很重要，而且因為當地人使用的土著術語可以用來描述行為。例如，為了理解一個亞洲村落社區的儀式，僅僅觀察演員的行為是不夠的；你必須學習他們用于描述行為的詞匯的意義和內涵。這似乎微不足道又顯而易見，但事實上很少有人相信他們在“憑自己的眼睛看見事物時”，已經理解了這個事情。人類學家有更高的需求，我們堅持認為只有當我們可以盡可能理解和解釋一種現象對當地人意味著什么時，我們才能說已經明白了這種現象。

有些讀者可能已經注意到前面“土著”這個術語的用法。這個詞似乎已經過時，或許甚至有些優越感。當代人類學家使用這個詞的方式與這兩者都無關。意大利人和太平洋島民一樣，都是“土著”。

在挪威語中，具有土著特征的術語是“fred og ro”，若翻譯成英文就是“平和與安靜”的意思。然而，挪威語中關于土著術語的使用卻具有特別的文化內涵，這表明直接的轉譯還不足以覆蓋其全部的內涵。因此，文化轉譯意味著人們必須說明土著概念的全部意義，并指出其用法和范圍。為此，不僅要限制對那個概念的轉譯，而且要顯示它們如何與其他概念聯系在一起，并最終如何形成一個連續的整體，即一個文化的領域。

TRANSLATION

A crucial task for anthropology, and one of the most demanding ones, consists in translation, and this refers not just to verbal translation from one language to another;just as important is the translation of non-verbal acts. It is obvious that translation can be difficult. Even translation between written versions of closely related languages such as English and German can be problematic. If one then moves to a society which is radically different from one's own and tries to describe what the inhabitants say and do in one's own language, it stands to reason that there are many difficulties to be resolved.

Although anthropologists both engage in conversation and observe interaction on fieldwork, it is common practice to begin by learning the meaning of native terms and concepts. This is not just because it is important in itself to understand language, but also because native terms are used locally to describe acts. In order to understand a ritual in an Asian village community, for example, it is not sufficient to observe what the actors do; one must also learn the meaning and connotations of the words they use to describe it. This sounds trivial and obvious, but in fact a depressing number of people believe they have understood a phenomenon when they have ‘seen it with their own eyes'. Anthropologists have higher demands, and insist that we have only understood a phenomenon when we are able to understand and explain, as far as possible, what it signifies to the local population.

Some readers will have noticed the use of the term ‘native'above. The word seems dated, perhaps even condescending. The way it is used by contemporary anthropologists, it is neither. Italians are just as ‘native'as the inhabitants of a Pacific island.

A characteristic native term in Norwegian is fred og ro, which translates into English as ‘peace and quiet'. However, in native usage in Norway the concept of fred og ro has particular cultural connotations which entail that a direct translation is not sufficient to cover its whole meaning. Cultural translation thus implies that one accounts for the full meaning of native concepts, indicating their usage and scope. It does not, therefore, limit itself to translation of single concepts, but also shows how they are connected with other concepts, and ultimately how they form a continuous whole, i.e. a cultural universe.

有時候，人類學家可能會遇到看起來無法轉譯的概念。例如，有人爭論說某些人不會按照歐洲語言里的區分方式，去區別思維和情感，反而會用一個詞匯來粗略地概述，比如“思維—情感”。在這種情況下，人類學解釋就有必要使用土著的術語。這提醒我們往往可用顯著多變的方式來分割詞語。就拿顏色為例。即使是兩種在地理上相近的語言，例如英語和威爾士語，也會用不同的方式區分綠色和藍色：兩種只有細微差別的顏色可能在英語中被感知為藍色，在威爾士語中被感知為綠色。即使是普遍客觀的事物，比如人的身體的組成部分，也不是被每一個人用同樣的方式來描述的。阿根廷的屠夫順著線切碎牛肉，他們用于描述牛肉種類的詞匯，只有部分與德國的屠夫重疊；同樣，人體組成部分的區分邊界在各地并不一樣。例如尼日利亞的伊博人（Ibo），使用單個的術語描述整條腿，包括從腳到大腿的各部分。

然而，這種轉譯問題相對簡單和直接。要轉譯抽象的術語則會困難得多——關于精神、道德價值觀和分類抽象系統的概念等。埃文思-普里查德（1956）在他關于蘇丹牧牛部落努爾人宗教信仰的權威著作中，詳細地描述了他們的信仰和宗教概念，并且用努爾人自己可感知的方式，不遺余力地描述他們的精神世界以及關于來世的概念和儀式。這本書得到了高度的評價，并且被宗教人類學課程列為必讀書目，但這已經暗示普里查德的文化轉譯可能被他自己的信仰所著色，因為他是一位天主教徒。尤其是據說努爾人的創造精靈kwoth，被他描述成了與基督教的上帝一樣。

所有的文化轉譯都需要一些解釋和簡化。一個文本若只包含直譯而沒有來自報道人的評論性注釋，理性的讀者就無法弄明白它的意思。因此，壓縮和編輯是文化轉譯的必要組成要素。另外，無論一個人類學家怎樣的杰出，作為田野工作者、作家和分析者，文本總是代表著一種選擇，或多或少都會打上翻譯者主觀的烙印。

Sometimes, anthropologists may come across concepts (or acts) that seem untranslatable. For example, it has been argued that certain peoples do not distinguish between thoughts and emotions in the way that one does in European languages, but instead use one term which could be glossed roughly as ‘thought-feeling'. In such cases, it may be necessary to use the native term in the anthropological account,without translating it. This reminds us that the world is being partitioned in ways which can vary significantly. Even two geographically neighbouring languages such as English and Welsh distinguish between green and blue in different ways; certain nuances are perceived as blue in English, but green in Welsh. Even ‘objective', universally human things such as body parts are not delineated in the same ways by all people. An Argentine butcher cuts up a carcass along other lines than a German one and uses a vocabulary to describe the kinds of beef which overlaps only partly with the German; similarly, the boundaries between human body parts are not the same everywhere. The Ibo in Nigeria, for example, use a single term to denote the entire leg, from the foot to the thigh.

These kinds of translation problems are never the less relatively simple and straightforward. It is far more difficult to translate abstract terms, i.e. concepts about spirits, moral values, abstract systems of classification and so on. In his magisterial book about the religion of the Nuer, a Sudanese cattle people, EE Evans-Pritchard (1956) describes their beliefs and religious concepts in great detail, and takes great pains to depict their spiritual world, notions about the afterlife and rituals in the way they are perceived by the Nuer themselves. The book is highly regarded and is often on the reading list in courses on the anthropology of religion, and yet it has been suggested that Evans-Pritchard's cultural translation may have been coloured by his own beliefs, as he was a Catholic. In particular, it has been claimed that the creative spirit among the Nuer, kwoth, is described in a way that makes it resemble the Christian god.

All cultural translation necessitates some interpretation and simplification. No sane reader would be able to make sense of a text which consisted exclusively of directly translated, unmediated quotations from informants. Compression and editing are therefore necessary elements of cultural translation. Moreover, no matter how outstanding an anthropologist is, as a fieldworker, as a writer and as an analyst, the text always represents a selection, and it will always to a greater or lesser extent be marked by the subjectivity of the translator.

換句話說，似乎不可能獲得一種“純正”的文化轉譯；文本總是會受到人類學家職業特殊興趣的影響。人類學家在對遙遠地方的居民（也可能并不太遠）的研究中迫切需要明確的問題，不一定是土著同樣感興趣的問題。他們可能會使用抽象的概念（比如性別、階級、族性和等級制度等）組織資料，而且相應的概念并不總是存在于報道人的生活世界里。

轉譯的問題看似被歪曲的幽靈，唯一的最后方案好像只能讓報道人沒有中斷地講述，其功能就類似于一個傳聲器立在那里。這種極端的方法帶來的結局必然將是一系列長期、未加評注和未刊行的獨白，至多能夠顯示人類學家的解釋、壓縮和編輯有多重要。這種文本將是無法理解和不值得一讀的。另外，轉譯不僅僅在于使口頭表達可以理解，還在于解釋社會組織原則和行為的方式。

沒有任何文化的轉譯是完美和確切的，所有的轉譯都會具有主觀性的要素，但還是有區分好壞的標準。膚淺的轉譯常常因為缺乏上下文環境而被人識破，因而不被有資格的讀者所信服。通過向其他資源請教，比如在同一地區工作過的其他人類學家，通常可以發現誤解和簡單的誤譯。另外，人類學家不應該與他的研究對象保持太近或太遠的距離。如果太過于密切，就像是在寫作“自己人”那樣，可能導致自我盲視（homeblindness），這會忽視對社會本質特征的觀察，其原因是存在個人想當然的事實。太遠的距離則表明人類學家無法在足夠的程度上，抓住“土著自己的觀點”。文化轉譯的藝術就是來回擺動于遠近之間、個人概念和土著的觀念之間，或者——換句話說——是使陌生的變熟悉和使熟悉的變陌生。

In other words, it appears impossible to achieve a ‘pure'cultural translation; the text will always be influenced by the anthropologist's professionally specific interests. The questions that are pressing for anthropologists in their research on remote (or not so remote) people, are not necessarily the same issues as the ones the natives are interested in. They also use their abstract concepts (such as gender, class, ethnicity, hierarchy, etc.) to organise the data, and corresponding concepts do not always exist in the life-worlds of the informants.

The only final solution to the problem of translation, seen as the spectre of misrepresentation, seems to be to allow the informants to speak without interruption, that is to function as their microphone stand. Such an extreme approach, where the outcome would inevitably be a series of long, unmediated and unedited monologues, would show, at the most, how important the anthropologist's interpretation, compression and editing is. Such text would be incomprehensible and unreadable. Besides, translation does not just consist of making verbal utterances comprehensible, but also in explaining patterns of action and principles of social organisation.

No cultural translation is perfect and definite, and all translations have an element of subjectivity, but there are criteria for distinguishing the good from the bad. Superficial translations can often be recognised by their lack of context and therefore do not convince the qualified reader. Misunderstandings and simple mistranslations can also often be discovered by consulting other sources, such as other anthropologists who have worked in the area. The anthropologist, moreover, should not seem either too close to or too distant from the people she or he writes about. Too great a degree of closeness, as when one writes about ‘one's own people', can lead to homeblindness, that is a failure to observe essential features of a society due to the fact that one takes it for granted. Too great a distance may imply that the anthropologist becomes unable to grasp ‘the native's point of view'to a sufficient degree. The art of cultural translation consists in oscillating between distance and nearness, between one's own concepts and the native ones, or—to put it differently—making the exotic familiar and the familiar exotic.

比較

大部分人類學家認可比較是他們所做工作的重要組成部分，但是就什么樣的比較相對合理或/且令人滿意而言，可能會有很多種觀點。在繼續往下講之前，我們必須清楚比較的目的。這不在于按照“發展水平”或人品將社會或文化排序。比較是一種澄清人類學家研究結果重要性的方式，通過建立比較可以揭示一種社會與其他社會的相似性，并得出（或批判）理論歸納。

在日常語言中，人們常常會講“無法比較蘋果和梨”。按照這個意思，有些事情是無法比較的，因為它們的性質不同，比如一罐橄欖油和一本詩集，這種警告是中肯的。然而，如果因此認為不同的現象，比如美國集鎮和太平洋島嶼上的勞動力分工無法比較，許多人類學家就不會認可。比較的目的是理解和相似性一樣多的差異，只要有足夠多的相似性可以作出特殊的比較，這個工作就值得進行。

那么，當人類學家進行比較時，他們做的事情有哪些呢？首先必須解釋清楚的是在人類學的作品中，比較總是連續不斷地在發生，有些區別也是必要的。

首先，轉譯本身是一種比較的形式：我們含蓄地通過轉譯，將土著的語言及其概念與我們的進行比較。

其次——現在我們正在用一種有意識的目的談論轉譯——人類學家通過在他們研究的社會或其他實體之間建立的對比進行比較。普里查德曾經說過他對中非阿贊德人的巫術的研究，使他更容易理解斯大林統治下的蘇聯。更典型的比較可能發生在印度和西歐關于人的概念化上，這在前面已經討論過，或者像包辦婚姻和戀愛婚姻之間的比較，并通常在研究西歐的亞洲裔移民時會涉及。這種比較盡量闡明不僅要詳細審查制度，還要分析所討論社會更一般的特征。

COMPARISON

Most anthropologists agree that comparison is an important part of what they do, but there are many views as to what kinds of comparison are possible and/or desirable. Before moving on, we must be clear about the aim of comparison. It does not consist in ranking societies or cultures according to their ‘level of development' or moral qualities. Comparison is a means to clarify the significance of the anthropologist's findings, through creating contrasts, revealing similarities with other societies, and to develop (or criticise) theoretical generalisations.

In everyday language, it is often said that ‘one cannot compare apples and pears'. If by this one means that certain things cannot be compared because they are qualitatively different, such as a tin of olives and a book of poetry, the admonition may be relevant. If, however, it means that phenomena that are very different, such as the division of labour on a Pacific island and in a town in the USA, cannot be compared, many anthropologists would disagree. The aim of comparison is to understand differences just as much as similarities, and as long as there are enough similarities to make particular comparisons possible, the job may be worth undertaking.

So what is it that anthropologists do when they make comparisons? First of all it must be made clear that comparison takes place continuously in anthropological writing, and some distinctions are necessary. First, translation itself is a form of comparison; we implicitly compare the native language, its concepts and so on with our own through translation. Second—and now we are talking about translation with a conscious purpose—anthropologists compare through establishing contrasts and similarities between societies or other entities that they study. Evans-Pritchard once said that his studies of witchcraft among the Azande in Central Africa made it easier for him to understand the Soviet Union under Stalinism. More typical comparisons could be undertaken between Indian and western European conceptualisations of the person, briefly discussed above, or the contrast between arranged marriages and love marriages, often dealt with in research (and in journalism) on Asian immigrants in western Europe. Such comparisons try to shed light not only on the institutions under scrutiny, but also on more general features of the societies in question.

再次，比較經常用于調查人類普遍性的可能存在。例如，如果所有的群體都掌握了有關紅色、黑色和白色的概念（這似乎已經得到了證實），我們必須假設這些顏色之間的區分，是人類的一項天生特征。比較研究已經顯示所有人都有概念和規范，關乎亂倫、血統、性別角色和其他許多社會現象。然而，大部分此類共性的現象，在于當這類概念翻譯成當地的現實時，只要仔細檢查總會清楚地發現它們是指非常不同的現象，而且人們必然會問普遍性是否確實存在，或者表面上的相似性是創造出來的，把概念強加于實際上完全不同的現象之上。

比較不只是嘗試用于區分共性，不過這通常是富有爭議的事情，還可以用來反駁這種主張。另一個后面將會更加詳細討論的例子，是關于侵略性的爭論。特別是那些深受進化論這一關于人類生物性視角影響的人，堅持認為侵略性是天生的共性，尤其是在人類中更明顯。與此觀點相反，許多人類學家通常借助于他們自己的民族志，宣稱有些人既沒有與侵略性有關的概念，也沒有可被描述為侵略性的行為。反過來，對這種論據的反駁將是侵略性到處都有，但是可能會以不同的方式表達出來，而不一定被研究者識別為侵略性，比如因紐特人（易洛魁人）的決斗。

因為兩方面的原因，所以在此不可能得出每個人都認可的最終答案。由于轉譯是比較的必要條件，而且文化轉譯具有不穩定的成分，因此永遠無法嚴格和無可爭辯地證明，他實際上比較了他想比較的任何事情。另外，比較總是預示著去文本化的程度——只比較單一的特征而很少注意到更廣的范圍——這可能會導致誤導性結果。例如，可能需要爭論的是盡管所有人都有關于白色的概念，但在探討當地人對白色的理解過程中存在的跨文化差異——完全在文化環境中看待白色——比只說白色是各地土著的一種范疇會更切中要害。眾所周知，白色在中國是一種哀傷的顏色，這方面它與歐洲人關于黑色的意義一致。

Third, comparison is used to investigate the possible existence of human universals. If, for example, it is shown that all human groups possess concepts about the colours red, black and white (which seems to have been proven), we must assume that the ability to distinguish between these colours is an inborn feature of the human species. Comparative studies have also shown that all peoples have concepts, and norms, about incest prohibitions, descent, gender roles and many other social phenomena. The problem with most universals of this kind, however, is that on closer investigation it nearly always becomes apparent that such concepts, when they are translated into local realities, refer to very different phenomena, and one must then ask if the universal is really there, or whether the apparent similarities are created by the comparer, imposing the concepts onto phenomena which are actually very diverse.

Comparison is not just used in attempts, often controversial ones, to identify universals, but also to disprove such claims. An example, to be treated in greater detail later, is the debate about aggression. Many, especially those who are inspired by an evolutionary, biological perspective on humanity, have argued that aggression is an inborn universal, especially prominent among men. Against this view, many anthropologists have claimed, often referring to their own ethnography, that there exist peoples who neither have notions about aggression nor practices that can be described as aggressive. A rejoinder to this argument could in turn be that aggression exists everywhere, but that it may be expressed in different ways which are not necessarily recognisable as aggression to the researcher, such as song duels among the Inuit (Eskimos).

For two reasons, it is impossible to arrive at final answers that everyone can agree on here. Since translation is a necessary condition for comparison, and cultural translation always has an element of uncertainty, it can never be proven strictly and beyond dispute that one actually compares whatever it is that one claims to compare. Besides, comparison always threatens to lead to a degree of decontextualisation—single traits are compared with little attention to the wider context—which may entail misleading results. It may rightly be argued, for example, that although it has been shown that all peoples have a notion of the colour white, it is more relevant to explore the cross-cultural variations in the local understandings of the colour white—to see the whiteness in its full cultural context—than merely to state that whiteness is a native category everywhere. As is well known, whiteness is the colour of mourning in China, sharing at least in this respect the significance of the colour black in Europe.

最后，比較有時候涉及人類學的“類實驗”。在實驗類科學中，實驗是新知識的最重要來源。一項實驗總體上包括引入可控制的變量，進入其對相關變量完全了解的設置中，并擬定出變化的結果。如果一個自然科學家團隊想調查激素的效果，他們可能會采用兩組小白鼠做實驗，它們除了在重要方面不同外完全相似。A組是既定的激素條件，而B組（控制組）則沒有激素或注入無效的對照劑。如果A組明顯發育得比B組更快，就有理由假定激素促進了生長。也可以在單組中進行實驗，通過一段時期內變化的環境來觀察。對于可靠性高的實驗來說，除了一種調查研究的變量以外，其他變量必須保持穩定，也就是說只有允許變量處在可變的測試范圍之內，其效果才是可判定的。

在人類學研究中，不可能保持單一變量的穩定。如果將一群土著放入一個人造和可控制的環境中，就會導致其互動失去能保證其真實性的背景，因而就使結果無效。所以，最近的人類學家開始通過比較得到實驗的方法論典范。一個人可以比較一兩個社會的許多相似性，但是只有一個或少數幾個顯著的差異。因此，一個人可以站在一個立場上說明差異。20世紀50年代以來的一個著名比較，是在有著許多共性的中非社會之間進行的，納德爾（Siegfried Nadel）認為親屬制度、居住模式和巫術的相對重要性之間存在一種聯系。如果親屬制度是父系，而且居住模式采用從夫居（妻子移居到丈夫家），巫術指控最有可能會更普遍——它們直接面向那些從外村來的婦女——與居住模式遵循其他原則的村落相比。

Fourth, comparison is sometimes spoken of as a ‘quasi-experiment' in anthropology. In the laboratory sciences, the experiment is the most important source of new knowledge. An experiment amounts to introducing controlled changes into a setup where one has full knowledge of the relevant variables, mapping out the consequences of the changes. If a group of natural scientists wish to investigate the effects of a hormone, they may take two groups of rats, which are otherwise similar in key respects. Group A is given the hormone, while group B (the control group) gets nothing or an ineffective placebo. If the members of group A on average grow markedly more rapidly than the members of group B, it is reasonable to assume that the hormone promotes growth. An experiment may also be undertaken on a single group, which is observed under changing circumstances over a stretch of time. For the experiment to be reliable, it is necessary that all the variables except the one under investigation are kept constant, which is to say that one only allows variations in the values of the variables whose effects are to be gauged.

In anthropological research, it is impossible to keep single variables constant. If one were to place a group of natives into an artificial, controlled situation, the resulting interaction would lose the very context that guarantees its authenticity, and the result would be useless. The closest anthropologists get to the methodological ideals of the experiment is therefore through comparison. One would then compare two or several societies with many similarities, but with one or a few striking differences. One would thereby be in a position to account for the differences. In a famous comparison from the 1950s, between some central African societies which had much in common, Siegfried Nadel argued that there was a link between the kinship system, the pattern of settlement and the relative importance of witchcraft. If the kinship system was patrilineal and the pattern of settlement was virilocal (the wife moved in with the husband), witchcraft accusations would most likely be more common—and they would be directed towards the women, who came from outside the village—than in societies where the pattern of settlement followed other principles.

整體論和語境

整體論這個術語可能暗含著神秘主義和模糊的虔誠感。許多宗教，尤其是當代新時期各類宗教的類并（syncretisms），提供了整體理解和整全療法等的希望。在人類學中，這個術語的用法迥異，它是指一種方法，描述單個現象在整體中，如何與其他現象和制度相聯系。在傳統的功能主義人類學，比如馬林諾夫斯基那里，會假定整個社會完全是整合的，就像一個拼圖，里面的各塊都能適合，不能落下一塊；而且文化——具有象征意義的超結構——與社會組織的適應關系就如同手和手套的關系。這種超功能主義觀點已經被人拋棄很久了。早在1954年，利奇研究緬甸高地的宗教與政治時，就認為社會遠非一個綜合的平衡體。社會不穩定而且會變化，關于起源的神話就有幾種相互競爭的版本，有些實際上會誘導民眾起來反抗。對社會不同部分或制度相互很好整合的觀點，進行更加激進的批判是20世紀60年代巴斯（Fredrik Barth）的“相互影響論”，這種模式將行動的個體放置在中心，不假定社會整合是互動的必然結果。

然而，整體論并不一定是指社會或文化以一種完美、合乎邏輯和功能的方式結合在一起。它也可以是一種思維方式，假定現象會與其他現象有關，并在互動和各種要素相互影響的基礎上創造出一些實體，而不想當然地認為這個實體具有持續的特征，或者可以包含整個社會或所有人群。在這種更謙虛和靈活的意思方面，一些實例可能會使整體論必需的東西更清晰。

在美拉尼西亞的混雜語言中，kastom的文化范疇是指傳統、價值觀、行為方式和人類創造性的結果，這些被當地人視為源自本地。在20世紀，美拉尼西亞島從新幾內亞延伸到斐濟島，都被拖入了市場經濟之中；他們現在被現代國家的形態所統治，人們不得不卷入大眾媒體、學校和金融經濟。變化激發了許多美拉尼西亞人普遍政治認同感的增強，他們自我意識到有必要保持傳統的文化形式，以便避免個人和集體失去自治權。因此，kastom這個術語可用來確認社會事實，表明他們具有其他起源，并且比現代人具有更道德的基礎。正如美拉尼西亞人對人類學家（根據薩林斯的記載）所言：“如果我們沒有kastom，我們就會和白人一樣。”這個概念表明了一種寬泛的觀點和生活方式，它用一種模糊的方式涉及現代性：它與抵制、自我主張和認同有關，而且涉及快速變遷條件下傳統文化形式持久的生存能力。盡管它被視為反現代，但也是現代性的一種矛盾與反文化的產品，因為它鑲鑄在現代性的習語里。kastom的語法與各地的傳統主義相似。

HOLISM AND CONTEXT

The term holism may have connotations of mysticism and fuzzy religiosity. Many religions, not least contemporary syncretisms of the new age kind, offer promises of holistic understanding, holistic healing and so forth. In anthropology, the term is used differently, and refers to a method for describing how single phenomena are connected to other phenomena and institutions in an integrated whole. In classical functionalist anthropology, as in Malinowski, one assumed that entire societies were perfectly integrated, like jigsaws where all the pieces fit and none has fallen behind the couch;and that culture—the symbolic, meaningful superstructure—fits perfectly in the social organisation. This ultrafunctionalist view has long been abandoned. As early as 1954 Edmund Leach showed, in a study of religion and politics among the Kachin of upper Burma, that societies are far from being in an integrated equilibrium. They are unstable, they change, and there are several competing versions of the myths of origin, some of which induce the inhabitants to revolt. An even more radical critique of the idea that the different parts, or institutions, in societies are well integrated with one another came in the 1960s with Fredrik Barth's ‘transactionalism', a model of analysis which puts the acting individual at the centre, and which does not assume that social integration is a necessary outcome of interaction.

However, holism does not necessarily mean that societies or cultures hang together in a perfect, logical or functional way. It may also be a way of thinking which assumes that phenomena are connected to other phenomena and create some kind of entity based on interconnections and mutual influence between its various elements, without taking it for granted that this entity should be of a lasting character, or that it encompasses an entire society or an entire population group. A couple of examples might make it clearer what holism can entail in this more modest and flexible sense.

The cultural category of kastom in Melanesian pidgin refers to tradition, values, ways of behaving and results of human creativity that the local population regard as local in their origins. In the twentieth century, the Melanesian islands, which stretch from New Guinea to Fiji, were drawn into the world economy; they are now governed by modern state formations, and the populations have to relate to mass media, schools and a monetary economy. The changes have inspired the growth of a widespread identity politics among many Melanesian peoples, where they are conscious of the need to retain traditional cultural forms in order to avoid the loss of personal and collective autonomy. The term kastom is used to identify social facts that have other origins and another moral basis than the modern. As the Melanesian said to the anthropologist (according to Marshall Sahlins) ‘If we didn't have kastom, we'd be just like the white man'. The concept refers to a broad range of ideas and ways of life that relate to modernisation in an ambiguous way; it is about resistance, self-assertion and identity, but also about the enduring viability of traditional cultural forms in situations of rapid change. Although it is seen as anti-modern, kastom is also a paradoxical, countercultural product of modernity, since it is cast in the idiom of modernity. The ‘grammar'of kastom resembles traditionalism elsewhere.

對kastom的描述表明，它如何進入并融合到社會和社會生活的各個方面，這就是整體論。它并不說明這些社會特別緊密地整合到一起，或者是特別的穩定——相反，美拉尼西亞社會相當支離破碎和快節奏——但這種奇異的現象只有通過它們與其他現象的內部聯系，才能得到完全的理解。在西歐，穆斯林婦女使用的頭巾，如果不放在當地勞動力市場和媒體，以及戰后非主流世界的政治認同的背景下，就無法得到理解。

另一個實例可以這樣來說。在對挪威文化的描述中，阿徹提（Eduardo Archetti）談到20世紀70年代他作為相對新近才移入這個國家的人，想在大學的咖啡廳給同事購買一杯咖啡，同事在他返回柜臺取咖啡的瞬間把錢還給了他。換句話說，同事決心立刻解決他的債務。

從這個孤立的事件來看，場景純屬虛構，盡管土著直覺上可以理解阿徹提復雜反應的原因，但對于外人來說，很難了解挪威的文化與社會。而當阿徹提將此放入挪威歷史與意識形態這個更大的背景下理解時，就可將其作為挪威人社會生活的中心特征的一種表達。即刻償還所欠的債務，在人類學里被看作是平衡互惠，挪威人在日常生活中如此做的原因，是想對于那些他們不熟悉的人，避免長期和持久的感情債。在許多場合都可以發現平衡互惠的邏輯，這也可以聯系到歷史背景，比如大部分挪威農民是獨立的小農，還可以聯系到類似節儉和平等之類的清教徒價值觀。阿徹提將即刻“返還禮物”與諸如獨立和自給自足的價值觀聯系在一起。對挪威人日常生活中典型平衡互惠的描述，在其揭示大部分意義和規則的體現方式，又能通過似乎無意義的小事表露時，就成了一種整體論。

A description of kastom which shows how it enters into, and engages with, different aspects of society and of social life, is holistic. It does not suggest that these societies are particularly tightly integrated, or that they are particularly stable—on the contrary, Melanesian societies can be rather fragmented and fast-paced—but that singular phenomena can only be fully understood through their internal connections to other phenomena. The use of the headscarf, or hijab, among Muslim women in western Europe cannot be understood unless one sees it in the context of local labour markets and media, as well as postcolonial identity politics in the non-dominant world as such.

In a description of Norwegian cultural forms, Eduardo Archetti mentions that when, as a relatively newly arrived immigrant in the country in the 1970s, he wanted to buy a colleague a cup of coffee in the university canteen, the colleague paid him back the moment he returned from the till with the coffee. The colleague was, in other words, determined to settle his debt immediately.

Seen as an isolated event, the scene is pure anecdote, and although natives would intuitively understand the cause of Archetti's confounded reaction, it contributes little to unpacking Norwegian culture and society for outsiders. But when Archetti sees it in the wider context of Norwegian history and ideology, it can be understood as the expression of a central feature of Norwegian social life. Repaying incurred debts immediately is known as balanced reciprocity in anthropology, and the tendency to do so in Norwegian everyday life is a result of a desire to avoid vague and long-lasting debts of gratitude towards people one does not feel familiar with. The logic of balanced reciprocity can be identified in many kinds of situation, and it can be connected both to historical circumstances such as the fact that most Norwegian farmers were independent smallholders (feudalism was weak in this area) and to related Protestant values such as thrift and equality. Archetti associates the immediate‘return gift'with values such as independence and self-sufficiency. A description of balanced reciprocity, so typical of Norwegian everyday life, becomes a holistic one when it reveals the ways in which large clusters of meaning and norms (ideologies) are reflected in and revealed through small, seemingly insignificant events.

然而，另一個實例可能是FBD（與父親兄弟的女兒結婚）的婚姻形式，它主要實行于中東和北非。在北歐人看來，這是一種奇怪的習俗，這接近于亂倫，而且侵犯了個人自由選擇配偶的權利。盡管如此，對這一行為的整體描述卻揭示，它在特定的社會世界中是有意義和合理的。實行這種婚姻形式的社會是父系社會（主要通過父系繼嗣來計算親屬關系），當男人去世后，財產（土地或畜群）需要在子女中分割。因此，一名男子與他父親的兄弟的女兒之間婚姻的聯合，意味著他想阻止家庭財產的分裂。此外，兄弟之間的關系很強，而且在這些社會里具有重要的政治意義，它可以進一步強化他們之間的關系，用來確認重要的社會模式。親屬關系是鞏固的，而且通過與其他親屬集團的聯姻，可以避免可能發生的沖突。順便提一下，沒有哪個社會會禁止FBD婚姻，但在我們討論的社會中，人們認為如果可以實行，它將是最好的一種解決辦法。

因此，人類學的整體論使我們看到一種互動和溝通體系內部的聯系。近年來，這個詞多少有點過時了，部分是因為許多人類學家現在相信，他們研究的分裂的世界只是零零碎碎的整合。然而，我們的實例表明今天整體論還是可以聯系實際，而不是假定存在一個緊密整合和穩定的實體。上下文環境實際上是一個關鍵概念。在人類學的分析方法中，事實上現象都要考慮它與其他現象之間的動態關系。除非它們在一個更大的上下文環境中被理解，否則任何信仰、技術和婚姻制度或經濟實踐（提到少量的實例）都沒有什么意義。如果一位人類學家試圖理解伊斯蘭教，他就不能局限于研究《古蘭經》，還要研究穆斯林的生活世界，也就是從內部呈現他們的世界。另外，如果人類學家想要研究互聯網，他大概就需要在線上和線下開展研究。為了了解互聯網用戶在網絡之外的生活，線下的研究很有必要，這可以反過來幫助他理解他們在線上所做的事情。在各種人類學研究中，聯系實際的方法論要求都很重要，但是就我呈現的簡單示例而言，每種現象都有其可能的上下文環境。相關背景的選擇取決于研究者優先考慮的事情。

Yet another example could be FBD marriage (marriage with father's brother's daughter) as it is practised in North Africa and the Middle East. Seen from western Europe, this custom may appear a bizarre one, bordering on incest and in violation of the individual's right to choose his or her spouse freely. A holistic description of the practice will none the less reveal that it is meaningful and rational within a particular kind of social universe. The societies in question are patrilineal, and property (land and/or herds) is divided among the children when a man dies. A marriage alliance between a man and his father's brother's daughter (FBD) thus signifies an attempt to prevent fragmentation of family property. Moreover, the relation between brothers is strong and politically significant in these societies, which means that a further strengthening of their relationship serves to confirm important social patterns. The kin group is consolidated, and possible conflicts that might arise through intermarriage with other kin groups are avoided. There is, incidentally, no society that proscribes FBD marriage, but in the societies in question, it is considered a good solution if practicable.

Holism in anthropology, thus, entails the identification of internal connections in a system of interaction and communication. The word has gone somewhat out of fashion in recent years, particularly because many anthropologists now believe that they study fragmented worlds which are only integrated in a piecemeal fashion. Never the less, the examples above indicate that holism today is to do with contextualisation rather than postulating the existence of tightly integrated and stable entities. In the analytical methodology of anthropologicy, context may actually be the key concept. It refers to the fact that every phenomenon must be understood with a view to its dynamic relationship to other phenomena. No forms of belief, technologies, marriage systems or economic practices (to mention a few examples) have any meaning whatsoever unless they are understood in a wider context. If an anthropologist tries to understand Islam, he will not limit himself to studying the Qu'ran, but will also study the life-worlds of Muslims, that is to say their world as it appears from within. If an anthropologist intends to study the Internet, she will presumably carry out research both online and offline. Offline research is necessary in order to learn about the lives of Internet users outside the Internet itself, which in turn helps to make sense of whatever it is they are doing online. The methodological requirement of contextualisation is fundamental in all anthropological research, but as the examples above indicate, every phenomenon has several possible contexts. The choice of relevant contexts is dependent on the priorities of the researchers.

擴展閱讀

Leach, Edmund (1982) Social Anthropology. Glasgow:Fontana.

Delaney, Carol(2004) Investigating Culture: An Experiential Introduction to Anthropology. Oxford:Blackwell.