Text, Anti‐Text, and the Need for a Class‐based Hermeneutics

Abstract

Framing the QuestionThe tension between symbolic or interpretive anthropology, and a more historical or political-economic approach is often expressed as a debate between Text and anti-Text This issue seems to dominate much contemporary discussion on the status and future direction of the discipline. It is found in questions like: Does one tendency demonstrate greater efficacy or intellectual rigor than the other? Are these approaches diametrically opposed and antagonistic in nature? Or should they be integrated to form a new anthropological synthesis?This paper considers the diagnostic features and history of each approach in anthropology. I posit another alternative, based on the assessment that the text/anti-text debate represents a false dichotomy. It reflects an academic struggle over turf, not an opening or enlarging of the anthropological imagination. Neither approach has an organic claim to the concept of partisan commitment or authentic engagement of the people and communities we study. That is a political choice, a political commitment.In place of the text/anti-text debate, I would like to show how a class-based hermeneutics can facilitate a more complex understanding of social life; especially workingclass life. It is an engaged, partisan approach grounded in historically specific class relations and capitalist social structures. At the same time, it recognizes the layers of meaning embedded in ethnographic discourse. It appreciates the power and force of words (see Raymond Williams' treatment of Keywords, 1976).A class-based hermeneutics draws on the earlier efforts of women, African-Americans, and other nationallyoppressed people in anthropology who called upon historical experience, personal background, and political commitments to inform anthropological theory and practice-in order to construct feminist, anti-racist, and liberatory visions. In like fashion, a working-class hermeneutics proposes that class experience, class anger, and workingclass commitments can be a resource or point of leverage to enlarge and enrich anthropological practice.