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CAM BR ID GE
UN IV ERSI T Y PRES S
CA MBRIDGE
NEW
Y OR K
ME LB OURNE
S YDNE Y
2 .a',,
*-Y)--4-
) .1.-|
VN
For M.A.L.
X V II I
Preflace
Prologue:making explicit
Prologue:making explicit
vtrurrrwr
4Lrvrr
quu
J t 4 L r J t r 9 4r
p4rlvl
uruE
Yardsticks
of civilisation),
or groups.Iun""'more'or'ress'cohesion
(indices
of
e ^l :
' ^ t1
'-
.more'
.less'
"vttuarlt]), or
persons
-'
be
v!
r r lv lw
symbolised
o
J r r r uv r r ow u
as
o
r
vor
l
luJJ
r-' " " rr s
close
9
ru)9
to
Lv
lnature
ldLul9
/ ., ,- . .
| "
\women's
u urr
distance
r4 l l u c
from
l IO m
ssocial
ocla
centrality). One might think of the modern
cPochas
pluralist. then, and i ts successoras postplural in character.
Thatthlreh"r b..;;r;;;;;i"';il;;iinir.p""r,
is superseded
isoneor
cil;HTiln.t,
un outcome
of anexcess
is thatof r
of sorts.Theexcess
Lulture exceeds
itself (Nature vanishes)and. outcultivated. Culture is
Prologue:making explicit
Prologue:making explicit
1
Individuality and diversity
ll
a.
Facts of kinship
Pets and children
An antithesisbetweenan extensivereach of kin relations and the enterpriseof
individualsis one that Macfarlane (1978) would project far back into the
Englishpast. There he finds quite habitual the denial of relationships and of
kin claims beyond the narrowest span. Individualism is traditionil for the
English.Go back to the thirteenth century, even, and you will discover the
Englishbehaving in the sameindividualistic way we take as so typical
of our
own tlmes. These connections led Macfarlane to conclude
that the great
his.toricaldivide (the origins of capitalism) was not
such a divide after all, and
ndeed there was a reason why England
was the first industrial nation
-" -- of>k:np
-'' t
l
F tr r ^ ^ ^
rr-
thaiby"l50o,
una.certainly
-'-\
-:'
L:r^"f:ll::.,f1
9L]uio,lq;i:" i?'.0
conditions
'ue,e.'t'
for the modern
viewof naturewerealready.rtuuilrn.a egTg:gj). "( .
wouldstress
the
lu, *h.r"u, hisaccount
'9..1', or of proclivitiesthat are curiously
""rti;;;;;it;;r"il;;;J:")a:
.preserved',
^"'a ' 't"/ ''/
ir iis afso-an
it
lY"l
iti),t;;;ki
iJ*, o"iy.nau,o
1
insofar
lh
r n o, ^- ,r
as
tneyare'r;;;;;;
in new forms: tradition is thereby reinvented ,--,
converselywe arriveat theffin
other view, that new ideas can
:S!gy{ha!se.
onlyemerge
fiom thei
ir antecedents.It i s tradii tion that chanses:
: indeed, it
th
rvr rr rl r rr lu
i, uil ,t,ut
iun.
12
appear
connections.It is an anthropological axiom that howeverdiscretethey
some
in
is
nothing
not
embedded
relations;
of
product
to be, entities are the
axtom
the
contexr or worldview that givesit its specialshape.I propose to take
individull
to
app.lies
concepts
also
discrete
to
applies
what
literally, as though
s
p.rron, and that by relations we may also understand the 'relations lonc
relatives) of English kinshiP'
emotion for dwelling on tradition. or for
_ The English iave. u ,p"iiul
jusiout
reach of enterprise:sentimentality.Their
of
. ii
dwellins on-what is
point. Macfarlane is taken with rhomas's
in
case
a
pets
is
for
*-.*/:^ -;;il;?;i;ty
.*
V":-'' il;;';;'il;
Individualityand diversiry
13
couldsrandfor anexercise
of independence.
rn rheimage
"rs uuue Delngsent away from home or breaking free
"rllJ:i.|lt:T:]rl
from its parents was
Individualityand diversity
is not its parents provides an image for thinking about the contrast between
traditionversusnovelty,relationshipsversusindividuals;that the child comes
from its parents prompts a counterinterpretation. Tradition innovates;
relationshipsproduce individuals.
Supposethese conceptualisationsdid indeed once constitute a reproductive, or procreative(after Yeatman 1983),model. The model would be both
grounds for and an outcome of kinship thinking. Its implicit developmentalism rnakes generation appear irreversible: children seem further on in time
from their parents; tradition comes 'before' change. we could thus say that
relationshipscome'before'persons.Parentsalreadyunited in a relationship
produce individual children. we might further say that their unity as one
person presupposesthe individuality of the child. yet, in their children,
parents (rersons in a relationship) also produce other than themselves
(individualpersons).Individuality would thus be borh a fact of and .after.
ki nshi p.
l4
t5
Conventionand choice
Individualism has its own quantification effect - persons are thought to
exercisemore or less individuality, by analogy with the amount of freedom
one has to act in this or that manner. It is even measurablebetweenparents
and children, at least to the extent that the English regard children as more
individualistic than parents. In the relationship between them, it seemsthdf ,
the parent can stand for the idea of relationship itself, cast in terms of given
ties,obligation and responsibility,while the child demonstratesthe capacity to
grow away from relationships,as an independentpersonconstructing
hii qJher own referencepoints. Thus, as Janet Finch describes(19g9: 53). the
parent's duty to care for the helplesschild is more of a certainty
than the
child'sduty to care in later years for a helplessparent. However,
it is quit6'
possibleto reversethe case,and stressthe greater
individuation ofthe parents
(eachrepresentinga unigue-ti-dg-p-lrhe
family; by conrrast with the child who
oelongsto both. The
Sarenr chil]\ relationship in fact offers a two-way '
appa-ratusfor imagi ning-degreesof i nd i vid
uality.
It is a characteristicof the organisation of ideas
that I describethat almost
any perspectivecan be countermanded
by another. Hence the view ,from the
cnlld'finds, so to speak,
another version in the view ,from the parent'. The
vtew from the child
seems a specifically English echo of Macfarlane's
seventeenth-and
eighteenth-cenluryobiervation'that obligations, like
ernotion, flowed down
[from pur"nt to child]' in that, after the jurist
Drackstone.
'natural afrectiondescendsmore strongly
than it ascends' (19g6:
"4,. lhe vrew from the parent has nineteenth-centuryantecedentsin the
uniqueness
claimed for the parent-child relationshipby virtue of its basisin
the individual
identities of each parent. This uniqueness became, for
an index for those kinship systems to which English was
li_ll$:,"ty,
'tttmatly perceivedto belone.
16
Individualityand diversity
17
Whatever one might say about the formal properties of the terminology,
perh.rpsthe popularity of Morgan's schemeamong anthropologistsrestsin
i he d.montt r at i o n t hat t he individuali t yof t he parent svisiblycont r ibut est o
the uniquenels.of the parent-child relationshifis a whole. The contrast is
with systemsthat do not afford such a senseof uniqueiress.For the twentiethcentury English, that contrast reappears as an internal feature of the
relationshipitself, in the same way, as I have suggested,that one party to the
relationshipcan Lpp-ggl:.Tglel ggique or individuated than the other.
The generalpoint is indicated in"ttre frequent interdigiration of kinship
termsand personal names.It is as though the very use of kin terms in English
hasa classificatorycast to it, while personal namesare held to be descriptiveof
the unique individual.3 A kin term denotes a relationship and thus a
perspectiveon the person from another's viewpoint. of course,a contrast lies
betweenkin terms themselves.Terms of referencefor absent relativesappear
more formal than the often familiar diminution of terms of address.But when
a nameis regardedas more informal or personal than a kin term, then all kin
termscome to have generic connotations. Betweennames, there is a further
contrastin the differentiationof surnameand Christianname.Thesedaysone
talks of first rather than christian name and, for most people, the connotationsof the baptisedname as admitting the personto a community of souls
is displacedby its personalisingfeatures(Firth, Hubert and Forge (1969:304)
equatethe Christiannamewith'personalname').In that aspect,the first name
is more personal, we might say, than the surname or family name.
Here lies a history within a history. Harold Nicolson, writing in 1955,
commentsthus on the twentieth-century revival of a fashion for first names
which had prevailed briefly in certain circles at the turn of the eiehteenthand
nineteenthcenturies:a
In my own life-time... the feelingaboutChristiannameshas
[again]changed
completely.
My fatherwould neverhaveusedthe Christiannameof any man or
womanwho wasnot a relationor whomhe had not knownfor at leastthirty years.
My auntcalledherhusbandby hissurname
until thedayof hisdeath.It wasin the
reignof EdwardVII that the useof christian namesfirst becamefashionable,
and
eventhenit wassurroundedby all mannerofprecautions
andrestrictions.
Todayto
address
a manby hissurnamemight appeardistant,snobbish,old-fashionable
and
ratherrude. . . I am oftenamazedby thedexteritywith which
actors,band-leaders,
merchants,
clubrrenand wireless-producers
will rememberto say 'Veronica'or
'Shirley'to women
to whom theyiave not evenbeenintroducea.
tnis engagrng
naottderives,I suppose,from the united states:from
the beliefcherishea
uy tni
crtlzens
of that Republicthat all men,asall women,arecreatedequalandthat these
gambitsof intimacyform part
of the pursuitof happiness.
(Nic'holson1955:273)
N-otethe consensus
about the signification of such shifts, that among any
ctrcle of people
the move from surnames to first names is a move from
tormality to
informality; it parallelsthe decisionspeoplemake as to whether
rrreyusekin
termsor namesfor their relatives.The latter is also interpretedas
l8
./ \
./'
-/
--f-
Exlrc.Fomtllol
\-
-:.
\
z'cnrar.cnrNoeA Great-cnndra
i
/UNCLE
GMNDPA I
GRANDAo
I
I
G..ndr.
G.r nny
Nanna( N an )
Au nt
Fomlllol
UNCTE
cous lN...
FATHER
DADDY (DAD)
PAPA(PA)
POP
Mothcr
Mummy(Mum)
Mamma(Mr)
Mom
Aun t
Auntie
C o ur l n ...
Personal
Namer
PERSONALNAMES
l9
rro-qlhe-b-i!-q+J.us9-9-lk-is*t-e.tr$-rl-edd-rps
lnqlisht95m-i"qol9gi9+lp-et-t-ggg,
i;-i;IG,il,
folmaritvas suctris-regarffi'as"cdn$fairir-'tlii;
u-liberating
individuating than calling that person Mother (cf' Firth, Hubert and Forge
of
1969:310).s-Thenumber of Anns in the world no doubt run in hundreds
nriddlemother.
a
one
has
only
Mary,
person
Indeed,
each
thousands, while
classrespondentin Firth's London study (Firth, Hubert and Forge 1969 311)
explained her small daughter's use of a kin term towards her thus: 'To her
there is only one Mother, but there are two or three Mary's in our circle.'
Another said that to use first names among kin was actually to introduce a
distance, to make them feel less close. With respect to a circle of named
individuals, then, the (generic)kin term can also work to a personalisingeffect.
It singlesout a specifictie. But much more than kin terms, namesseemto add
to the personalisingmove the significant factor of choice, itself an ingredient
20
of informalitY.
That a move away from kin terms in address, or away from titles and
surnamesin other spheres,is imagined to be a move away from formality or
conventionperhapsderivespart of its power from former habitsof address.It
was once the casethat a superior was at liberty to addressan inferior by the
first name but not the other way round. ln Morgan's time. servantsas well as
children will have beenaddressedpersonally,although the servantwould have
had to take regard of the rank order among the children. Employers might
invent names for their servants.What lent this liberty importance, however,
has long ceased to signify. Rank has been reconceptualisedin terms of
personal interaction, for the present choice appears simply betweenmore or
less formality. Formality still carries connotations of respect, but it has
become a matter of individual style whether or not one implements that
formality in intimate circles.
A practiceoncedefinitiveof rank - calling solrleoneby their firsl name- is
no*i".n as a negationofrank. That is, one conventionis challengednot by
what is perceivedas another convention, but by what the English perceiveto
be anti-convention. Underneath the convention, one discovers the 'real'
person. Thus. to call a parent by a first name today is not necessarilya sign of
insubordinationor lack of respect.On the contrary, it may be encouragedby
the parent as a positive indication that within the family everyone has the
choice of being treated 'in their own right', as a person rather than simply as
some role-player. They are all special, all as it were one another's pets. To
borrow the words of a Canadian sociologist,the solidarity of the modern
family dependson'personalattachments'betweenindividualmembers(Cheal
1988: 144). Convention is concealed in the anti-conventional effect of
'personal' expression.This bears on views of change and diversity.
Like certain kin obligations, time is seento flow downward. It thereby
contributes to the asymmetry in relations between parents and children, and
to the contextsin which parentsare regardedas actingmore from convention,
children more from their capacity for individual choice. Out of the fact and
direction of generation, the antitheses between convention and choice or
relationshipsand individuality acquire a temporal dimension.Convention,
2l
22
ZJ
Morgan 1985:16ff1.
Anderson's position . . . is entirely denied by Peter Laslett. Far from endorsing the
view that nosingle lamily form is characteristicof the West, Laslett maintains that,
pending evidenCeto the contrary, we should assumethat the nuclear form of the
iamily prevails. He argues . . . that tleparturesfrom this J'amily form are merely the
'fortuitousoutcomes'of localtzeddemographic,economic or personalfactors' In his
insistencethat the extendedfamily is no more than a sociologicalmyth, Laslett puts
forward the proposition that'the present state of evidenceforces us to assumethat
the family's organization was always and invariably nuclear, unless the contrary
can be proved' [Laslett 1972 x,73]. (1982:83,my emphasis)
Barrett and Mclntosh's own conclusion, and one to which I shall return, is
that the family is a contested concept. lt is the place of diversity that is of
immediate interest.
Diversity appears as an interference to generalisation; either there are
.many' typ-esoielse only 'one'. Once diversity is admitted, we can conceiveit
as starting with individual experienceand proliferating through heteroge-
25
*.-orincati
onisatonce
,,
, xrfi':"",.ffi
,]i""h*l
[H:i;ilff
ff
;;
:Ji
t?l'""".in.tess
to.specify what might be particular to the
appearsnecessary.
to a specific
i" which I render English kinship itself. I should be true
reasons
(see
Four),
there
are
several
Chapter
will becomeapparent
l"rr*;.As
class
middle
with
way
the
to
do
the
largely
usage,
.'-.-,.--,
f.,"u, on middle-class
general
values.
Yet
social
regard
as
they
what
communicate
J",i".ir,, and
not stop there. There are many middle-classways of doing
does
iuriiJuri,y
suburbs are not the same as northern ones, and not all
itrrr, and southern
The original question raisesits head. What then is
yuppies.
are
.,r#rrionulr
is to be exemplified in its middle-class
Iie middleclasstype?If English kinship
middle
class is to be exemplified in some
the
that
iorr, ttt"n it would seem
style, a choice that invites us to
cultural
and
regional
particular education,
variants;
local
and so on'
and
occupational
further
ionsider
WhenDavid Schneiderand Raymond Smith (19'73)attempted to grasp the
diversity of American kinship, they did so by making middle-class kinship
exemplaryin a strongsense.Schneider's(1968)earlierstudy in Chicagoin the
1960shad focusedon a middle income population. Although this population
evincedthe cultural apparatus of 'American kinship', there were also marked
divergencesfrom what Schneider and Smith call 'lower-class' kinship
practices,and the comparison is the subject of the joint monograph. They
concluded that the middle-class values they had analysed - including
emphasisput on the growing autonomy of the child and intra-familial
individualism(cf. Firth, Hubert and Forge 1969 460)- in fact encompassed
lower-classvalues. Lower-class kinship did not comprise a separatesubculture, but promoted values and attitud-esspecifically in referenceto middleclassones,which thus held a hegemonicstatus.Moreover, middle-classvalues
weresymbolicallydeferred to as ideal and generalisable(conventional),while
tower-classvalues were taken
to represent a particular and specific kind of
struggle('real life' choices)
with the 'real world' of limited resources.
One contrast between middle- and lower-classkinship practiceslay in the
extentto which
middle-classfamilies emphasised.o-p"i*".
in the managementofsocial relations
and applied rationality principles to decision-making
tDchneiderand Smith
lg73: 114). They endorsed innovation, and were
on enterprises, including the .making' of relationships, that is,
ll"t:-|*
relationships through explicit affective and pracrical dimen:;:::tru.cting
tn love-making,cf. varenne rgjj: lggff). Similar featureshavebeen
f'.*'tas
retelant to middle-classEnglish kinship; more
than that, the middle
;;"s1iy
beena vehiclefor widespreadand radical social change.However, I
il"::.",*
the material to hand to contrast middle- and (what the English
n*"1"_'luu.
Prcfer
to call) working-classkinship practices
as far as the English are
.^::
26
27
t he lat t ergivesris et o
,nul ti pl i cit yol l si ngular )unit st hat can be c ount ed.t hen
by volume or weight. What can be traced back to Edward Tylor's
",,unii,V
as Tim Ingold notes (1986: 441,cf.
lrltrt.-rtug.' or'degree of culture',
was
in
Morgan's
notion of greater or lesser
already
there
1968),
stocking
It
is
in
the
historical
disputeabout whether
also
there
civilisation.
of
J.*r.m
well as in what I have
as
change/continuity
can
be
observed,
less
or
,oJr.
positions
deducedto be kinship assumptionsabout some people being in
than
others
and who
or
more
individuality
more
uniqueness
show
wherethey
'more'
person.
longer
speakof
scientists
might
no
of
a
Sociai
sense
that
arein
but
were
still
in the
in
an
evolutionary
idiom,
social
development
of
erades
freedom
that
volume
with
amount
of
choice
or
of
concerned
the
u"ry
1960r
individuals could exercise.
Whetheror not this investmentin specifyingquantity is part of the middleendeavour,s
classpursuit of rationality as a utilitarian, competence-enhancing
generalisable
individuality
into
make
and
diversity
also
the specifications
phenomena.They in turn resolve the phenomenon of individual difference
into anotherphenomenon.the capacityto analyse.What becomesmeasurable
isthedegreeof applicability of either the individual caseor diverseexamplesto
account of them. I give a brief illustration.
a generalised
Stocking(1987:200 1) suggeststhat it is from the 1860sthat one finds the
first hint of a number decline in the English middle-classfamily. The idea
prevalentin the 1960sthat 'the [middle class]family is small in size' (Fletcher
1962 125) seems eminently quantifiable. If the reference point were the
nuclear family based on the household, then one could look at changing
householddemography(by contrastwith the past)or at comparativestatistics
(by contrastwith the working class);eitherprocedureassumesthat what is to
be enumeratedare the numbers of individuals. What relatives live together?
On the other hand. one could look at the degreeto which family members
cooperateor assistone another,a volume of behaviourmeasurableperhapsin
terms of frequencyof visits and amount of help (e.g.Young and Willmott
1957).How strong is the link betweenthis or that kinsperson?Now both types
of magnitudehave a significantnon-quantifiabledimension.The very idea
that families evince one or other kind of 'size'is taken to be a generalstate of
affairs.That is, the analyticalpropositioncan be appliedto all families,so that
regardlessof the particular measurementsall are measurable.
In short, quantity (volume and enumeration)solvesthe problem of how to
think of both individuality and diversity with respectto the general.One can
measurethe degreeto which values are prevalent or how a society allows this
or that through the behaviour of individual persons as in showing the
percentageof personal name usage for parents. Description based on such
analysis encompassesboth the representative and the unrepresentative.
Conversely, any analytical type can be shown to have its counterpart in a
particular (segment of) population. Only where the population cannot be
specified does generality or representativenessmake no sense. Hence
28
\
Individuality and diversity
29
Individualityand diversity
how the English make it self-evidentthat the world is plural, complex and full
of individuals. Of what, then, and how is this pressingsenseof heterogeneity
composed?
30
Facts of nature
Who are the English?
Over the century betweenthe 1860sand 1960s,'theEnglish'acquiredcertain
definitive features, although they are ones that have, since the counteremergenceof ethnicpoliticsin the 1970sand 1980s,beenthrown into disarray.
In that period of innocent ethnicity, the English were regarded both as a
productive amalgam of diverse peoplesand as a highly individualistic nation
holding on to individualism as a transcendent characteristic of themselves.
The aggregating concept stressedthe 'melting pot' symbolism of heterogeneity, the organic concept that of a redoubtable character that was only to
be exemplified idiosyncratically in eachindividual English(man).The English
were thus self-definedin an overlapping way as at once a people and a set of
cultural characteristics.I exploit the ambiguity in my own account. and refer
to the English as though they were identifiably both.
The following rendition sets out some definitions of a sort. In 1929, the
Professor Dixon to whom I alluded gave a seriesof public lectures on the
Englishman at University College London. He took the occasion as an
invitation to expatiate on the distinctivenessof the English. We are treated to
The English Character, The English Genius, The English People,the English
Soul, The English Bible, and to cap it indubitably (cf. Brooker and
the Englishman'.It is in his lectureon
Widdowson 1986:I l9), 'Shakespeare
the English genius that Dixon claims the Englishman is typically an
individualist(1938:65).As a population of individualists,the Englishare also
'a many headedpeople' (1938: 71).
What is an individualist? our sageasks.'He is a man more guided by his own
opinions than by those he hears about him, not content to blindly follow the
crowd, who desires to see things for himself, one in short who 'shoulders
responsibility for his acts and judgements', with all the latter-day qualities of
reliance and initiative (1938: 68-9). Indeed, rather than following the
suggestionsof others, he would by choice work 'in his own garden on his
p r i v a t e p l a n '( 1 9 3 8 :6 7 ). By th e s a meto k e n , he i s' tol er ant' of the habi ts of
others. Dixon slides into a paean on diversity. Becauseof its respect for
individuality, he argues, England has nurtured a multiplicity of spirits and
opinions,and '[W]here in any societywill you meetsucha curiouslyvaried,so
parti-coloured mental tapestry' (1938:72).This in turn leadsto the celebration
of the English as a hybrid people in terms of their origins; 'an astonishingly
mixed blend', this 'glorious amalgam' (1938:90) is the natural generatorof
manifold talent.
3l
JL
5TOC KB ROK ER S
- 'homeloving'; a
it serves,among other duties, to distinguish a psychologicaltype
values 'there's
moral
of
a
standard
-'home
comforts';
Jiscomfort
of
high d.gr..
'homely';
and a radio
physical
charm
no ptaci like it'; a noticeable lack ol
p ro g . u t , o . o f o u t s t a n d in g b o r e d o m B 'B ' C 'H o me s e rv i c eB u tde s p ite th is
of the
i.e.i"ndou, adjectival expinsion it still retains. beneath layer after layer
one lives'
in
which
house
the
of
meaning
substantive
its
original
sentiment,
treacliest
the word
on closer investigation-oneis able to isolate the proper application of
.home' still further, and properly confine it to the inside ol one's house. . . [T]he
hence tts
word implies a sphere over which the individual has complete control;
appearance
the
whereas
And
individualists.
rugged
oJ'
in
a
land
pop
ulirity
.norrnou,
prejudices
of the interioi of one's house is ihe outcome ol'one's own personal tastes,
and bank balance,the outsidein ninety-ninecasesout ofa hundredis the expression
or evn
of the views on architectureof a speculativebuilder, a luxury flat magnate'
(1953: 9' my emphasis'
gentleman'
country
eighteenth-century
an
occasionally
punctuation emended)
widely
of all the styles he brought to light, stockbrokers Tudor became
gently
so
thus
were
adopted as a self-descriptionby those whose pretensions
parodied.
lies in the
My own disaffectiontiom/affection for Stockbrokers Tudor
houses,
semi-detached
of
Its
avenue
up.
grew
southern English road in which I
the late
in
built
was
gables,
Tudorbethan
at
hinting
black and white fiontages
interior
Lancaster
Osbert
the
grand
as
as
.n"un,
no
*"."-by
1920s;the houses
round the
suggests.though such houses and no doubt such people were
TUD OI{
..Four
OT even rhe first uorld rvar and its afrcrmath could scnsibly diminish
f
thc antiquarian cnrhusiesm which hrd first gripped the Errglislr
I \ !
public early in Vicroria's reign
^
; and tl,e .rcrmou. advance in
mass-production mcthods that took place during the iDter_war period
only
served to increase the enormous output of handicrafts.
The experience
gained in aircraft and munition factorics tvas soon bcinq
utilizeJ itr the
manufa.ture ofold oak beams, bottle-glassrrind6y-panq. Jnd
wrouglrt_iron
Tudor )ighting lixturcs.
In intcrior dccc'ration thc chcrishcd idcal, relentlcssly and all
too
succesfulJy pursud,.uas a glorificd vcrsion of i\nne Hatharvay,s
cortagc,
\!1 tI 5u( n modlh(altun s as w ere r)e(es\ trv lo cuD fi,rm
t o trrl )\i llrl rtic
standards ofplumbing.
In construction the Tudor note was truly sounded :
in thc furnishing considerablc deviations from s(rict period accuracv
w.,.
pcrmissible. Thus cightcenth-ccn(ury four-p,,srers, Rcgcncy
sampleis, and
Victorian chintzcs
all soon came to be regardcd u, TrJo, by adoption_at
least in estate agcncy circles.
Soon certain classes of the community were in a position to pass thcir
whole livcs in
long Elizabethan day-drcam; spencling tlr;ir nigirrs
-one
undcr high-pitched
roofs and ancient eaves, thcir days in lrekking from
Tudor golf clubs to half-timbercd cocktail b.rs, anj their
evcnires rn
contemplating I\{r. Laughton,s robusr intcrprcration of Henrv Vlll
;mid
the Jacobcen plesterwork of the Glorirnr prh, e.
\
J-t
J+
corner. The estatewas thus under construction at the time when Dixon was
deliveringhis lectures.Aspiring to a gardensuburb,it had beencarvedout of
an ancientwoodland that once suppliedElizabeth I's successorwith timber
for his fleet,and someof whoseremainingoaks carry individual preservation
orders. Like nrany statelyhomes in England, the treesare no longer private
property but part of everyone'spast.
The Garden Suburbhad sprungup in the wake of the gardencity movement
of the 1900s.one visionarymodel of the gardencity, in the words of Ebenezer
Howard, restedon making the distinction betweentown and country quite
exphcit.'Town and country must be married and out of thisjoyous union will
springa new hope,a new life and a new civilization';it was to be a marriage'of
rustic health and sanity and activity [and] of urban knowledge and urban
technical facility, urban political co-operation' (quoted by Thorns 1973: 17).
The very phenomenon to be avoided was the formlesshomogeneity of the old
urban suburbs.The gardencity promiseda completelynew urban form. But it
was the gardensuburb that spreadwith suchpopularity in the interwar years;
and, neither urban nor rural, it was to collapse rather than sustain the
distinction.
Let me return to one aspectof Dixon's rendition. This is the notion that
diversity is a natural outcomeof the mingling of difl'erentpeoples,an amalgam
which preserves
its original vigour. Inter-minglingcontainsa geneticimageof
cross-fertilisation, though the difference between plant and animal imagery
might give one pause.I suspectthe hybrid that Dixon celebratesis to be
thought of as roseratherthan mule. Unlike the sterilemule, the cultivatedrose
with its Tudorbethan resonancesgrows healthily on a wild rootstock. Indeed,
the vigorous programme of hybridisationdevelopedby plant-breedersover
the hundred years since the 1860sliterally turned a modest victorian shrub
into the most prolific and diversefloweringbush in the Englishgarden.Above
all, in the rangeof rosescalledHybrid rea, accordingto my 1976gardeners'
manual, one finds both 'old favourites' and 'new exciting varieties'. New
varietiesappear each year. As Dixon intimated, infinite diversitv is oossible
for the future.
1989,sixty years on, lies in Dixon's future. How fares the hybrid?
In the late twentiethcentury, the English are more consciousthan ever of
ethnic diversity. Yet the result does not seem to be an ever more heady
amalgam. or at least people do not readily assimilatelatter day ethnic
differentiation to that of the celts and the saxons and the Danes whose
diversity, children were once taught at school, made up 'our isrand race'.
value was put on the mixing of ancestrywherewe now only seemabreto see
the proliferation and diversification itself. In the late twentieth century it has
becomedoubtful who or what 'the English' aree- or indeed whether the term
is usableat all. As a consequence.
we might remark, former perceptionsof
quantity do indeed seem to have lost some of their power. Has something
'happened'then?
35
Whot is EthnicRecord
keeping?
Ihe collecting
of informotion
obouto person's
ethnicgroup.
NIIOR.IN
MonchesterCity Councilbelievesin
equolrightsond opportunitiesfor oll
In itsrole os the lorgest
itscitizens.
ond on im Por iont
l ocolemP l o Y er
the Councilknows
services,
of
provider
towords
equol
work
it must
Putting
thot policyinto
opportunities.
orocticetokestime ond we needto
seehow muchprogresswe ore
moki ng.
Why theseProposols
for EthnicRecordkeeping
ond Monitoring?
Ethnicrecordkeepingond
monitoringmokeit possibleto tellif
Monchester's
equol opportunity
policyisworking
TI'rtCHESTER
-CitY
Council-
EDUCATIONCOMMITTEE
Whot is on ErhnicGroup?
An ethnicgroupisone in whichthe members
hoveo shoredcullurolbockoroundond
identity.ThisdoesNOT meo"ncountryof birih
or notionolity.
l.?ll;-,,",
eaxrsranr
!
trlroorrrlsr!
arntcalt!
vrrrult:sr f]
rrnocanrraean
!
OTHERBLACKT-.l
elxouorsxr !
?LEA5l3taCtfY U
aucxanrrrsx
!
rnrsx!
cxtrrs:f]
!
EASTAFR!5^N wxrreanrrrsx
n
OTHERWHITEfI
ftl^ltttacrfY
U
rNotet!
4 EthniLnonitorins. 1987
Mant'hesterCiry Council's categoriesfor a proposed ethnic monitoring scheme (1987).
E ng l t sh'does not app ea r.
Individualityand diversity
36
37
38
39
I9BB VOI,IINIT,
2 ISSUE9
SF]PTT,NTBF]R
EditorMarvRatcliffeArl Direclor
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Valley
lPrinled:Severn
PressOriginated:
Phoenix
Scanner
Graphics
Oystcr House
is a pearl among restaurants.
The popularity of this, the second
Restaurantto be openedin
the last two years, has been quite
phenomenal.
with his undoubted
knowledgeof the fish trade, is the
third generationof fishmongersand
knows that top quality, fresh produce is oi paramount importance.
Oysters are flown into Heathrow
twice a weekfrom lreland,crabsare
despatched from Cornwall, live
lobstersfrom Scotlandand the wild
salmonarrivesdirect from the Scottish rivers. There's quail, guinea
fowl, wild duck,saddleof hare,fillet
of venison, duckling from Norfolk
and chicken from Surrey. Looking
after the "drinks",
has
compiledan imaginativeand extensivewine list.
Bookingis advisable.
more technologY
Lessnuture'
postplural.I do so to suggestthat, self-evidentas the
Thisis thenostalgiaI call
also stem from a prior and very specific
seem,
they
anxieties may
modelling
of the world. If English ideas about reproduct(modern/pluralist)
model,
it
was not just for the making of personsbut for
formed
a
ive process
future.
Kinship
delineated a developmental process that
of
the
making
the
guaranteeddiversity, the individuality ofpersons and the generationoffuture
possibilities.
Hybrids were one element of the model. Out of a plurality of stocks was to
comethe singular characteristicsof the English(man) who preserveddiversity
in a tolerance for all forms of life. In the language of the time, one could
identifyan Englishcharacter.In the languageof the gardeners'manual,'one
hundredand fifty years ofhybridisation has given us the perfect [rose] plant'.
If individuality were swamped,on the other hand, then hybrid could turn into
mongrel,and The Societyof Pure English,founded in l9l3 (Dodd 1987:15),
saw only contamination in the blundering corruptions that contact with
'other-speakingraces' produced. Here the purity of the individual form (in
this casethe English language)wasjeopardised.Individual forms must also be
kept separate.
The English sense of plurality was much indulged in the making of
distinctions. Thus most thinkers on the subject have urged the readers of
books and articles to keep separatethe diverse meanings of 'nature'. With
hindsight,however, it is intriguing to seehow environment has been literally
imaginedas countryside, the life cycle of organismsas the habits of plants and
animals, the taken-for-granted background to human enterprise as the socalledlawsof the physicalworld, and so forth. In the sameway, diversityhas
oeenliterally imaginedas a matter of geneticvariation. Sincethe late 1970s,
this last connection has acquired a new and pressing salience,and one that
directly affects the cultural keepers of natural diversity, human beings
themselves.
For a decade now, considerable publicity has been given to artificial
7
parenthood, and particularly to the figure of the surrogate mother. In the
\
)t^mageof the surrogate mother appears the possibility of splitting apart . I
tunctions that in nature are contained in the one body. ovulation and
r.{'
Sestation. The English reaction to the new reproductive technologies in /r "'ii
generalhas predictably ranged from wonder to fear. For they appear to make
within human reach other dreams/nightmares, such as cloning - the
40
4t
{r
tii
\i
A)
T-
In d i vi du a l it y an d d i ver si t y
43
"\i\
culturalchoice,pggl ,ql"qltig!-q-gg,ilg!*qatiua!.
919-]onger!
-vsrip-!iglr.-t!9n
Thd;;;rspa-Aivil;itffi ;l piay off ag*nJi' oirenffihei. Thei
persua<les.
postplural nostalgia is for the simultaneous loss of convention and loss of
choice.
At the root of current debate (for example, the several contributions to
Stanworth's volume 1987; Magarey 1985; Spallone and Steinberg 1987;
Dyson and Harris 1990)1sis a profound issueabout the shapenot just the
English but Westernersin generalgive to ideas.They have in the recent pastl
usedthe idea of nature, including the idea of natural variation, as a vehiclefor
thinking about human organisation and its future potential. In its place is 4
late twentieth-century equivocation about the relationship between human
and natural process.For every image of technological advance as increasing
humanpotentialliesa counter-imageof profligatewastefor trivial endsand of
-lgsource dpletron. This includes Westerners' reproductive capacities.Artificial processesare seen to substitute for natural ones, and thus present
them sel ve saS WG lover l989: l8) . What isint er f er edl
with is the very idea-o-fTlfr-aJuraffict. Or, to put it another way, of the'
-differencebetween natural and cultural ones.
Schneider'sAmeiidah Kinship dei,pi,cted
sexual'intercourseas a core symbol:
the diffuse enduring solidarity of close family relations was attributed to j l
sharingsubstancethrough the act ofprocreation. Procreationwas a natural
fact of lil'e.But that 'natural' imagehas lost its obviousnessin a world where ;
couplescan seekassistanceto begetoffspring without intercourse.So too have lij i
the 'cultural' conventions of the union. The otherwise lawful connection of r
husbandand wife may conceivablysubsumea contract with a birthing mother '
or an agreementto obtain gametesby donation.
Yet changecan alwaysbe denied.Some will seekcomparisonswith other ,
cultures and other conventions,although the reassurancethat these newi
modes are simply part of the manifold diversity of human ways ofl
reproduction is, I shall suggestin the next chapter, misleading. Others who
cast their minds back to the science-fictionwriters of earlier this century. or
I
I
45
present
that smacks of the collective and state idioms against which the
life for individual
For
forward
is
a
better
way
constructed.
the
is
ideology
persons, and that is to be achieved by pror4oting what is proclaimed as
'Britain's
lEngland's)long lived 'individualism'.'A return to Victorian Values,, ,.
y-:fu_i9_tru_"gll
te.e_-d_e_991.L."-lg
l-.-sgtl*-ley-:1b_i9_iru_"qi11.1-"..l.y,an
is presenred as at once--eyqki
i19l
state intervention
intervention interfering
interferins in individual
individual choice
choice and personal
retreat
--irc^r from state
effort.r?Rather, as a consequence,enterprisemust be privatised, and the
sovernment has indeed privatised one of the country's foremost plant6reedinginstitutesalong with its seedbank. Such a projectionof the past into
the future is beautifully exemplified in the elision with Contemporary
American: recapturing traditional valueswill bring the bright future promised
by (what Englishfantasiseas)Americanenterprise.In the 1980s,Englishpubs
havebecomeheavywith reinstatedVictorian decor in high streetsdominated
by over-lit fast-food outlets.
As a pieceof history, of course,the'return to Victorian values'is nonsense.
But it ought to interest social scientists.A traditional value is claimed for
England's (Britain's) true heritage, and individualism promoted and encouraged in the name of returning to tradition-.i
Not only is the individualism promoted so actively in the late twentieth
centuryradicallydifferentfrom its counterpartof a century ago, it would not
be conceivablewith the intervening era which made the state an explicit
instrument of public welfare. For the target of presentpolitical discourseis the
tyranny of the collective. Indeed, the way in which the present 'individual' is
construedcomesdirectly from valuesand ideasthat belong to that collectivist
era. This is also true of many of the ways in which anthropologists have r.
thought about the study of kinship.
Schneiderwas right to celebrate1984with a critique of the idea of kinship.
His book is an attack on the unthinking manner in which generationsof
anthropologistshavetaken kinship to be the socialor cultural constructionof
natural facts. But underlying the attack is the recognition that this is how
kinship has been constructed in anthropology from the start, and indeed that
this is its identity.
The anthropologicalconstruction of kinship as a domain of study was
formed in a specificepoch.It cameinitially from the modernismo[ Morgan's
era, from the 1860sonwards, but flowered in England in the middle decadesof
the twentieth century. This was the era when the anthropological task was to
understand other people's cultures and societies,being thereby directed to
their modes of collectivisation and public welfare. The concept of kinship as a
set of principles by which people organised their fundamental relations
epitomisedthe anthropologicalcapacity to describecultural production on
the one hand and the way people made collective and social life known to
themselveson the other. It was thus no accidentthat kinship played such a
part in the making of British Social Anthropology, which - and however
hybrid the origins of their practitioners- between 1910-1960was basically
46
2
Analogiesfor a plural culture