Fact and fetish in creolization studies: Herskovits and the problem of induction, or, Guinea Coast, 1593

Abstract

Focuses on the way Melville Herkovits used facts and facticity in his scientific work on creolization, and how these facts related to the theories in his work. Author relates this to the idea of fact as a stand-alone datum, or "fetish", independent of any theory for its existence. He describes how Herkovits in his work presented classifications of intensity of African retentions in different parts of the Americas, as well as of cultural elements, which Herkovits meant to be heuristic, yet, the author argues, seemed to precede the data. Further, the author discusses criticisms on this "economic anthropology". In addition, he sketches how the data as fetish, and related induction, developed out of the scientific revolution in Europe, separating arguments from facts, but also out of colonial ventures and the history of the slave trade in West Africa, making it a part of the study of creolization, of African slavery and the African diaspora. He points out, and applaudes, that Herkovits' theoretical stance changed from a strict empiricism to an awareness of the place of argument, or social convention, in the making of the facts themselves.

Introduction: between variation and discontinuity

“…Seria possível apostarmos em deslocamentos em diferentes direções e "centros de gravidade", criando condições e redes -sociotécnicas e políticas -afeitas a interlocuções, associações e agendas diversas; investir na produção de conhecimentos sobre as socialidades caribenhas articulados a um conjunto de conceitos e questões em estado bruto, afetos de novas criações. Conhecimentos que nos proporcionariam estabelecer relações de estranhamento e participação -o que não implica pertencimento -com distintas tradições antropológicas (Maurer 2002(Maurer , 2004Slocum e Thomas 2003, 2007. O papel da etnografia seria menos o do registro, da documentação, do arquivo, da confecção de evidências, mas o de captar a voltagem, o timbre e a frequência irradiada por outros modos de existência (Latour 2013).…”

From West Indies to East Indies: Archipelagic Interchanges

“…One wonders whether structural-functionalism, for instance, could have developed had work on the 'West Indies' been at the centre of the discipline from its beginnings. For example, Furnivall's (1944) 'plural society' thesis, addressing the way colonising and colonised groups could coexist in a single society despite largely distinct cultures and institutions, has retained analytic value in 'East Indies' scholarship (e.g., Hefner 2001) but, despite being adopted by scholars like M. G. Smith (1984), it was soon critiqued in 'West Indies' scholarship as legitimating elite ideologies of social inequality (Maurer 1997(Maurer , 2002Robotham 1980). This issue of cultural transformation is central to Mintz and Price's thesis concerning the 'problem' of African-American culture.…”

Creolization and Its Discontents

“…HTM) 4 Perhaps one of the most curious applications of the term known to me can be found in a recent festschrift for Hannerz, in which the editors come close to vaunting that Hannerz himself is a creole phenomenon (Stade & Dahl 2003). see it, now you don't" effect that reflects the specificity of changing form of awareness on our part, rather than the specificity of facts that have simply come under novel descriptions (Strathern 1992;Parkin 1993;Friedman 1994;Maurer 1997Maurer , 2002compare Sahlins 1993compare Sahlins , 1999? Given the generally undertheorized use of creolization terminology, it is perhaps unsurprising that both views have been articulated.…”