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Contributions from
the Column
Media
Rape as a war crime
Lobbying guide
Taking foreign cultures more seriously
Globalisation myths
12/2006 |
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Taking foreign cultures more seriously
Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz:
Culture troubles. Politics and the
interpretation of meaning.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006, 395 p.,
$29.00, ISBN 0-226-10041-3
Seven years ago, the political scientists Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz caused a sensation with their provocative study “Africa works: disorder as political instrument”. It described how social unsafety is created in contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, and used as an instrument to accumulate property as well as to secure dominance. In addition, the authors criticised ahistorical views of “civil society”, the use of the concepts of tradition and modernity as a basis for analysis and other fundamental assumptions hardly challenged in research and practice.
Chabal and Daloz, currently teaching in London and Bordeaux respectively, have now published a new book called “Culture Troubles”, picking up on the controversial debate their earlier work triggered. The ambitious goal of this well-structured, easy-to-read and nevertheless challenging study is to develop a new approach to comparative political science, grounding it in culture. Chabal and Daloz believe that such an approach is required if very different countries are to be compared. In stipulating what they call a “perspectival paradigm”, they are considerably influenced by the late social anthropologist Clifford Geertz and his notion of “thick description”. Chabal and Daloz accordingly illustrate their theory and method by a comparative study of the state and political representation in France, Nigeria and Sweden.
They start from an observation made by any-one involved for any length of time in foreign culture: it is often difficult for people from different cultural backgrounds to communicate meaningfully with one another. There are constant misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the social status of others, their intentions and interests. From this observation, the authors develop the foundation pillar of their methodological programme: “To understand other people, it is necessary to understand how they understand themselves”. In this sense, a political scientist wishing to make a comparison must learn to understand how the society in question allocates meaning and sense according to own norms and standards – even if the scholar may find them obscure or bizarre.
That may sound like a truism. However, the book proves that the approach is by no means generally accepted. The authors illustrate this fact with many examples, criticising universalism, cultural relativism and various variations of post-modernism. For example, they deal with corruption, rejecting the universalistic search for definitions of corruption with universal validity, on the one hand, as well as the relativistic view that bribery is more widespread and accepted in Africa than elsewhere, on the other. As an alternative approach, they look for local definitions which demonstrate what kind of transactions are considered legitimate or illegitimate.
The book draws on an extensive fund of secondary sources and on much practical experience. “Culture Troubles” is a powerful intervention, which topples widespread academic and political beliefs. It could have a marked influence on future debate.
Ruben Eberlein
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