Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T12:45:35.342Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

In the Belly of History: Memory, Forgetting, and the Hazards of Reproduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Bilinda Straight
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the intertwined issues of memory and forgetting, focusing particularly on the question of precisely how, and by what social mechanisms, forgetting is accomplished. I discuss how collective and individual forms of forgetting are central to Bourdieu's notion of the habitus, commenting that the habitus is a living paradox, foreclosing (unimagined perhaps because unimaginable) possibilities and opening others only when moments of improvised reflection intervene. Moreover, the systems of the habitus enact a forgetting of the strange, the marginal, the in-between, and even the singular and the autobiographical. I explore these issues through the juxtaposition of formalized, collective Samburu (Kenyan pastoralists) memory forms and the illicit sexual practices that underworld them.

Résumé

Cet article examine les interdépendances du souvenir et de l'oubli, et particulièrement la question de savoir précisément comment, et par quels mécanismes sociaux, l'oubli s'accomplit. Il traite de la place centrale qu'occupent les formes collectives et individuelles de l'oubli dans le concept d'habitus de Bourdieu, en faisant remarquer que l'habitus est un paradoxe vivant, excluant des possibilités (inimaginées car peut-être inimaginables) et ouvrant d'autres seulement lorsqu'interviennent des moments de réflexion improvisée. De plus, les systèmes de l'habitus exercent un oubli de l'étrange, du marginal, de l'intermédiaire, voire même du singulier et de l'autobiographique. l'article examine ces questions en mettant en juxtaposition des formes de mémoire collective et formalisée samburu (pastoralistes kenyans) et les pratiques sexuelles illicites qui les habitent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 75 , Issue 1: Collective Memory, Reproduction and Generation in Africa , February 2005 , pp. 83 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amos, Valerie, and Parmar, Prathibha.1984. ‘Challenging Imperial Feminism’, Feminist Review 17: 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at Large: cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Bianco, Barbara A. 1991. ‘Women and things: Pokot motherhood as political destiny’, American Ethnologist 18 (4): 770–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianco, Barbara A. 2000 ‘Gender and material culture in West Pokot, Kenya’, in Hodgson, Dorothy L. (ed.), Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: gender, culture and the myth of the patriarchal pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Beauvoir, Simone de. 1949. Le Deuxième sexe. Paris: Gallimard. (1974. The Second Sex. Trans. and ed. by Parshley, H. M.. New York: Vintage Books.)Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Trans. by Nice, R.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1972. Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique, précédé de trois études d’ethnologie kabyle. Genève: Librairie Droz.).Google Scholar
Buckley, Thomas and Gottlieb, Alma (eds). 1988. Blood Magic: the anthropology of menstruation. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broch- Due, Vigdis. 1993. ‘Making meaning out of matter: perception of sex, gender, and bodies among the Turkana’, in Broch-Due, Vigdis, Rudie, Ingrid, and Bleie, Tony (eds), Carved Flesh/Cast Selves: gender as social and symbolic practices. Oxford: Berg Press.Google Scholar
Broch- Due, Vigdis. 1999a. ‘Creation and the multiple female body: Turkana perspectives on gender and cosmos’, in Moore, Henriette L., Sanders, Todd, and Kaare, Bwire (eds), Those Who Play With Fire: gender, fertility, and transformation in East and Southern Africa. London and New Brunswick NJ: Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Broch- Due, Vigdis. 1999b. ‘A proper cultivation of peoples: the colonial re-configuration of pastoral tribes and places in Kenya’, in Broch-Due, Vigdis and Schroeder, Richard A. (eds), Producing Nature and Poverty in Africa. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Broch- Due, Vigdis. 2000. ‘The fertility of houses and herds: producing kinship and gender among Turkana pastoralists’, in Hodgson, Dorothy L.(ed.), Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: gender, culture and the myth of the patriarchal pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Cole, Jennifer. 2001. Forget Colonialism? Sacrifice and the art of memory in Madagascar. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff., John 1991.Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity,colonialism,and consciousnessinSouth Africa. ChicagoIL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Connerton, Paul. 1989.How Societies Remember. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damasio, Antonio R. 1999. The Feeling of What Happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Di Leonardo, Micaela. 1998. Exotics at Home: anthropologies, others, American modernity. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Driedger, Walter. 1972. ‘The game of Bao, or Mankala, in East Africa’, Mila 3 (1): 7-19.Google Scholar
Fabian, Johannes. 2001. ‘Forgetting Africa’, Journal of Romance Studies 1: 9-20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1970. The Order of Things: an archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Vintage Books. (1966. Les Mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines. Paris: Gallimard.)Google Scholar
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel (Gabriel García Márquez).1967. Cien años de soledad. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana. (1991. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Trans. by Rabassa, GregoryNew York: Harper Collins.)Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy. 2000. ‘Gender, culture, and the myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist’, in Hodgson, Dorothy L. (ed.), Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: gender, culture and the myth of the patriarchal pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Hodgson, Dorothy. 2001. Once Intrepid Warriors: gender, ethnicity, and the cultural politics of Maasai development. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Holtzman, Jon. 1996. ‘The Transformation of Samburu Domestic Economy’. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Kondo, Dorinne. 1997. About Face: performing race in fashion and theater. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kratz, Corinne. 1990. ‘Sexual solidarity and the secrets of sight and sound: shiftinggenderrelationsandtheirceremonialconstitution’,American Ethnologist 17 (3): 31-51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kratz, Corinne. 1994. Affecting Performance: meaning, movement, and experience in Okiek women's initiation. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kratz, Corinne and Pido, Donna.2000. ‘Gender, ethnicity, and social aesthetics in Maasai and Okiek beadwork’, in Hodgson, Dorothy L. (ed.), Rethinking Pastoralism in Africa: gender, culture and the myth of the patriarchal pastoralist. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1977. Karl Marx: selected writings. Ed. by McLellan, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1987. ‘Difference: a special Third World women issue’, Feminist Review 25: 5-22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1984. ‘Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses’, Boundary 2 12 (3), 13 (1): 333-358.Google Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 1988. ‘Colonialism and modernity: feminist re-presentations of women in non-Western societies’, Inscriptions 3/4: 79-93.Google Scholar
Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlee, Günther. 1989. Identities on the Move: clanship and pastoralism in northern Kenya. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, Paul. 1965.Samburu: a study of gerontocracy in a nomadic tribe. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Susan. 1993. On Longing: narratives of the miniature, the gigantic, the souvenir, the collection. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann L. 1989. ‘Making empire respectable: the politics of race and sexual morality in 20th-century colonial cultures’, American Ethnologist 16 (4): 634-660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straight, Bilinda. 2002.‘From Samburu heirloom to New Age artifact: the cross-cultural consumption of Mporo marriage beads’,American Anthropologist 104 (1): 7–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straight, Bilinda. 2005. ‘Cutting time: beads, sex, and songs in the making of Samburu memory’, in James, Wendy and Mills, David (eds), The Qualities of Time: temporal dimensions of social form and human experience. ASA Monograph Series 41. Oxford and New York: BergGoogle Scholar
Strathern, Andrew. 1997. Body Thoughts. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Voogt, Alexander J. de. 1995. Limits of the Mind: towards a characterisation of the Bao mastership. Leiden: Research School CNWS.Google Scholar
Webster, Wendy. 1998. Imagining Home: gender,’race’ and national identity, 1945-64. London: University of Central Lancashire Press.Google Scholar