SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
SIGNS IN SOCIETY - STIBA Malang
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186 I Social Theory and Social Action<br />
this type of scientific metalanguage the codes and rules of social life are represented<br />
by an explanatory language which destroys the cultural specificity of its<br />
represented object. Conventions that could not be otherwise or which obey the<br />
requirements of some higher logic are, of course, no longer conventional. But this<br />
naturalization of convention can be observed in many places other than in the<br />
positivistic (mis) apprehension of cultural phenomena, namely, in the operation<br />
of societies themselves which regularly represent their conventions as necessary,<br />
immutable, or motivated constructs. If it can be documented that the naturalization<br />
of convention is itself a pervasive social phenomenon, then the theoretical<br />
arguments sketched above can be shown to be not only in principle incapable of<br />
(accounting for this data but also understandable as merely another, unprivileged<br />
example of a widespread occurrence.<br />
The crucial difference, however, between the naturalization of convention as<br />
part of a theoretical metalanguage and that as part of the data of social life is<br />
that only in the latter do the poles of nature and convention remain in a dynamic<br />
tension: in society, naturalization in fact perpetuates conventions by imputing<br />
powerful motivation to arbitrary constructs. My own cross-cultural reading and<br />
experience suggest that the social construction and function of the relationship<br />
between nature and convention can be as diverse as the different kinds of customs<br />
and rules often cited to prove the relativity of cultures. In order to move<br />
beyond the purely anecdotal I will present four ethnographic cases in order of<br />
increasingly explicit conventionality, that is, from examples where social conventions<br />
are relatively naturalized from the perspective of actors within the system<br />
to those where social rules confront actors as highly artificial, if not arbitrary,<br />
constructs.<br />
Conventions, especially those dealing with norms of action, can operate<br />
hegemonically in a society by drawing into their scope groups which not only<br />
have no role in their construction but also become implicated in perpetuating<br />
their own subordination. Rebellion against disfranchisement is made difficult either<br />
because antinormative sentiments only incite strengthened authoritative<br />
pressure or because challenges presuppose the very conventions in dispute. In the<br />
case of the Baruya of New Guinea, as described by Godelier (1976,1986), forms<br />
of domination of men over women are perpetuated by institutions and ideologies<br />
in which women become the principal agents of their own domination. To men<br />
are reserved the ownership of land, the knowledge of magic, the practice of warfare,<br />
the manipulation of sacred objects, and the control over affinal exchange.<br />
These objective manifestations of dominance are coupled with a difference in<br />
orientation of men and women, according to which men see their interests in<br />
terms of the tribe as a whole, while women, whose life course takes them from<br />
their fathers' houses to their husbands', view their sphere of activity as restricted<br />
to domestic space.<br />
Naturalization of Convention I 187<br />
In contrast to the ten-year, intensive initiation process required for young<br />
boys, girls undergo brief, secret initiation lasting only two weeks, which nevertheless<br />
establishes powerfully the legitimacy of rules and concepts supporting<br />
masculine domination. During their initiation girls are instructed by female elders<br />
to obey certain behavioral conventions as necessary elements of the social<br />
order: for example, never resist your husband's sexual advances or cry out during<br />
intercourse, never cut your husband's sugarcane without his permission unless to<br />
serve his guests, never have sexual relations with visitors, and—this one to protect<br />
fragile male egos—never laugh if you catch sight of your husband's accidentially<br />
exposed genitals. After receiving these admonitions, the initiates ritually<br />
chew sugarcane, a crop planted only by men and symbolic of the penis, and whip<br />
themselves with stinging nettles (Godelier 1986:45-46). Having internalized<br />
these rules and experienced these hardships, the young girls are then taught that<br />
their subordinate position is not merely a matter of convention but is rooted in<br />
the "natural" differences between their bodies and sexual processes and those of<br />
men.<br />
As Godelier (1976:284) concludes: "In a society without classes, the dominant<br />
ideas are the ideas of the dominant sex and the greatest force of domination<br />
is the consent of the dominated to their subordination." Without an independent<br />
set of concepts with which to confront their condition, the women are forced to<br />
use the symbolic language of the dominant males; and so as long as this condition<br />
prevails the men need only make minimal use of external forms of coercion (cf.<br />
Genovese 1982). The hegemonic function of social conventions has been cited<br />
frequently in recent discussion of the way linguistic categories perpetuate gender<br />
asymmetries. As Goldsmith (1980:182) remarks: "Therefore, when marginal<br />
people turn to the conventional language in an effort to interpret their suffering<br />
and devise valid means for altering their lives, at best they confront confusion<br />
and, at worst, they meet their own failure."<br />
Rather than enforce oppressive conventions through the ruse of imputed naturalness,<br />
the Belauan culture of Micronesia—if I may turn briefly to my own<br />
ethnographic fieldwork—goes to no trouble to hide the fact that control over<br />
social conventions rests primarily in the hands of members of high-ranking or<br />
chiefly houses. In Belau conventions are called "paths," a term much like the<br />
Latin via, which refers not only to roads and sea lanes but to prescriptive channels<br />
of social relationships (e.g., the "path" between allied chiefly houses) and<br />
recognized strategies of political action (e.g., the "path of fire," a rhetorical technique<br />
involving heated threats). Although these relationships and strategies are<br />
widely known and actively discussed, the ability to have one's actions typified or<br />
categorized as being a token of a type and, more importantly, the power to create<br />
new "paths" which will be subsequently presupposed by others are guarded prerogatives<br />
of high rank. In the absence of writing (at least in traditional Belau)