On Tourism as an Anthropological SubjectAuthor(s): Roy C. BuckSource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Jun., 1982), pp. 326-327Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2742325 .Accessed: 21/05/2011 00:52

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slavia Early Bronze Age settlements are smaller and more closely spaced than those of the Neolithic, capital intensifica- tion need not have taken place all at once, and evidence of stratification does not appear until the late Bronze Age. Therefore, my claims are held to be inapplicable to the Balkans as a whole. I am prepared to admit what Greenfield tactfully suggests: that I am not acquainted in detail with the evidence from southeastern Europe. Nevertheless, it seems to me that he misunderstands my position in more than one respect:

1. I do not predict that settlements will become larger with the onset of stratification. (Indeed, such a prediction would be falsified by evidence from not just the Lower Morava but all Europe.) Rent can be collected just as easily from dwellers in isolated farmsteads as from villagers or townsfolk. The key point is the permanence of the productive assets on which the farmers depend. Settlement aggregation is, rather, a prediction of the managerialist theories which I oppose.

2. I do not "presume that significant short-term labor in- puts were required" in the build-up of capital investments of whatever kind, but only that, as these were built up little by little by the autonomous efforts of the primary producers, the assets would accumulate to the point of making their abandon- ment more costly than the payment of rent. The pace and nature of capital inputs is something to be determined em- pirically in each region of Europe. I regret that Greenfield does not tell us what agricultural production was like in the Lower Morava during the Early Bronze Age. Perhaps stratification did not develop in that period because subsistence production remained unintensive. Be that as it may, inequality of con- temporaneous social development between regions is a striking feature of the European Bronze Age and one which my theory attempts to accommodate.

References Cited BANKOFF, H. A., and H. J. GREENFIELD. n.d. Changing subsistence

and population parameters: A non-migrational model for the Bronze Age. MS.

BANKOFF, H. A., F. WINTER, and H. J. GREENFIELD. 1980. Archae- ological survey in the Lower Morava Valley, Yugoslavia. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 21:268-69.

BOSERUP, E. 1965. The conditions of agricultwral growth. Chicago: Aldine.

CHAPMAN, J. C. 1977. The Balkans and the 5th and 4th millennia B.C., with special reference to social and economic aspects of the Vinca culture. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, London, England.

FERNEA, R. A. 1970. Shaykh1 and effendi. Cambridge: Harvard Uni- versity Press.

GEERTZ, C. 1963. Agricultural involution. Berkeley: University of California Press.

JOHNSON, G. A. 1977. Aspects of regional analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 6:479-508.

MCPHERRON, A., and E. R. RALPH. 1970. Magnetometer location of Neolithic houses in Yugoslavia. Expedition 12(2):10-17.

NACEV SKOMAL, S. 1980. The social organization of the Tiszapolgar Group at Basatanya, Carpathian Basin Copper Age. Journal of Indo-European Studies 8:75-93.

PEEBLES, C. S., and S. M. Kus. 1977. Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies. American Antiquity 42:421-48.

SHENNAN, S. 1975. The social organization at Branc. Antiquity 49: 279-88.

SHERRATT, A. 1976. "Resources, technology, and trade in early Euro- pean metallurgy," in Problems in economic and social archaeology. Edited by G. de G. Sieveking, I. H. Longworth, and K. E. Wilson pp. 557-82. London: Duckworth. --. 1980a. "Plough and pastoralism: Aspects of the secondary- products revolution," in Patterns in the past: David Clarke memorial volume. Edited by N. Hammond, I. Modder, and G. Isaac. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press. --. 1980b. Water, soil, and seasonality in early cereal cultivation. World Archaeology 11:311-30.

On Tourism as an Anthropological Subject

by RoY C. BUCK Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. 16802, U.S.A. 14 v 81

An important indicator of a research area's maturation is the appearance of essays calling workers to task for too exuberant conjecture and theorizing, on the one hand, and crass ad-hoc empiricism, on the other. "Tourism as an Anthropological Subject" (CA 22:461-68) is such an essay. Nash intones the litany of assessment frequently observed in presidential addresses, introductory chapters of textbooks, and state-of- the-art pieces in scholarly journals. The essay performs a valuable and comforting service. It is reassuring to know that a recognized and respected "pioneer" views tourism writings as composing an emergent scholarly whole possessed of unique perspective and intellectual challenge. For neophyte social scientists not yet "settled in" on a research specialty, "Tourism as an Anthropological Subject" offers significant scholarly leads whatever the discipline, methodological perspective, or value stance.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to quarrel with what Nash has to say. It is what isn't said that may give some readers pause. He edges toward entertaining the possibility that tourism may be a sui generis sociocultural phenomenon identi- fiable to a degree in all times and places, but he does not reflect on the implications of that possibility for research and theo- rizing. His observation that the study of tourism should "pay the same kind of dividends as the study of religion, myth, art,

and other 'superstructural' phenomena" (p. 465) is suggestive. Unfortunately, little more is said other than that "the study of the tourist-generating situation can provide us with a significant lead into sociocultural reality" (p. 465).

Nash sees tourism in the context of intercultural contact. His earlier essay, "Tourism as a Form of Imperialism" (1977), lays the theoretical groundwork shaping assessments and recommendations advanced here. Accordingly, little or no attention is directed toward an inside view of tourism as a "unique sociocultural reality." Ethnography and structure of tourism are not considered. Moreover, the language of tourism promotion and propaganda as well as tourist and enterprise argot are overlooked. Tourism architecture and the design of tourist sites hold exciting research possibilities but do not make Nash's compendium of research opportunities. Mac- Cannell's The Tourist (1976) introduces these emphases. Nash would have served us well if he had reflected upon and fleshed out MacCannell's conjecture and hypotheses, especially as they point to as yet relatively unexamined aspects of tourism phenomena.

Nash closes with a call for continuing and renewed commit- ment to building an integrated body of theoretically grounded, data-based knowledge. I suspect that his admonitions will go unheeded. Scholars, and especially those working in a relatively new area, tend to be laissez-faire entrepreneurs, especially in their specific research. Over time, "schools of thought" may develop, but they are often the result of competitive market and philosophic (political?) forces rather than deliberate dis- interested cooperation. Whose work is cited and how frequently provide useful indicators of the character of a research specialty at any one point in time, but influential figures come and go,

326 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY

"breakthroughs" are made, and work once shunted aside is rediscovered. Knowledge, perhaps more often than not, accu- mulates and becomes integrated not because of deliberate professional cooperation, but rather as a result of individual worker motivation and achievement and the following such achievement generates.

Nash as a pioneer in tourism scholarship is an undoubted major influence in the emergent intercultural-perspective school. He has every right to bring this view to bear on his vision of an anthropology of tourism. But, as an ancient

Chinese proverb warned, "A way of seeing is a way of not seeing." "Tourism as an Anthropological Subject" appears to document this bit of wisdom.

References Cited MACCANNELL, DEAN. 1976. The tourist. New York: Schocken Books. NASH, DENNISON. 1977. "Tourism as a form of imperialism," in

Hosts and guests. Edited by Valene L. Smith, pp. 34-47. Philadel- phia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

On Language and Aymara Personality

by M. J. HARDMAN Department of Anthropology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. 32611, U.S.A. 10 v 81

The earlier researchers among the Aymara were not only guilty of shortsightedness or, as Lewellen (CA 22: 347-52) claims, of faulty intuition; they were also ignorant of the language and of the "linguistic postulates" (Hardman 1978) of Aymara and, acting according to European categories, trans- gressed those of the Aymara. The treatment they received and the personality characteristics they perceived were directly related, at least in large part, to ignorance of these basic categories. I have seen such sanctions applied today.

"Human" versus "nonhuman" is distinguished grammatical- ly, in the vocabulary, and with cultural correlates. Closely related to this is the category of data source (Hardman, Yapita, and Vasquez 1975); all sentences are obligatorily marked to indicate the source of the information one is transmitting. If a person does not talk like a human (e.g., omits data-source marking) or does not act like a human (e.g., uses a nonhuman form for a human), then sanctions are applied, the most com- mon being the withdrawal of la.nguage (Hardman n.d.). Lan-

guage is considered the distinguishing mark of humanity. When one does not act or talk like a human one does not deserve to be addressed as one and is not addressed at all, since one does not talk to nonhumans. Thus, to one being sanctioned, who does not understand, the Aymara will appear taciturn, at the very least.

The Aymara, like all other human beings, act according to the postulates of their own language and culture, and, like others, assume that their categories are the universal ones of humanity. By observing data source, they appear suspicious. By observing the primacy of human, they appear taciturn. The Europeans, by claiming personal witness when none is possible and by ignoring the human claim, appear to be undeserving of human treatment.

References Cited HARDMAN, M. J., JUAN DE Dios YAPITA, and JUANA VA'SQUEZ. 1975.

Aymar ar yatiqaniataki. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms. HARDMAN, M. J. 1978. "Linguistic postulates and applied anthro-

pological linguistics," in Memorial volume in honor of Rutli Hirsclt Weir. The Hague: Mouton. --. Editor. n.d. Aymara langiuage in its social and ciltural context. Gainesville: UF Social Science Series.

On Altruism and the Family

by ANDREA DRUSINI Istituto di Antropologia, Via Jappelli 1 bis, 35100 Padova, Italy. 1 vi 81

Melotti (CA 22:625-30) treats the genetic fixation of altruism as a fact when no physiological basis for so-called altruistic behaviour has yet been proved to exist in man. Even the re- searchers cited (particularly Matessi and Jayakar) have tried to demonstrate only the "possibility" of a genetic fixation of altruism. Many correlations between parents' and children's behaviour have been found in man, but the estimates of variance often reflect environmental factors and not additive genetic ones. A complex and specialized phenotype such as a be- haviour pattern involves numerous genes, the identification of which is very difficult even with genetic biometric methods. In the experimental animals (Drosophila and mice) in which some cases of behaviour connected with specific genes have been demonstrated, the "experimental stocks" must be con- sidered artefactual, because they represent a population created artificially in the laboratory that consists of at least homozygous twins. "Real" populations, in contrast, consist of a large pool of genes and show considerable phenotypic differences and great variability of behaviour (Oliverio 1972).

A clearer definition of the concept of "altruism" is desirable: an individual could present "spurious" forms of altruism, acting under the impulse of quite different motivations. Parents' attitudes toward children include instances of selfish- ness that sometimes make children prisoners of a svstem of feelings and abstract principles, so one must include altruism in the more general "familial control systems," whose genesis is not univocal (Douglas 1979:47). Moreover, in some societies, infants may be in primary contact with persons other than their mothers; among the Ngoni of Malawi infants were often more strongly attached to their nurses than to their mothers (Bourguignon 1978:135). Again, altruism does not prevent the killing of their infants by mothers who do not want to nurse more than one child at a time, such as has been observed among some Australian Aborigines. Finally, if altruism is genetic, why does it not appear in infancy? It seems to be an adult's preroga- tive and one that diminishes with aging. For lack of space, I cannot discuss the author's use of coefficients of relationship in promiscuitv, polygamy, and monogamy, which I do not fully understand, or his Levi-Strauss criticism, which I cannot share.

Because few scientific propositions are directly verifiable, a great part of our knowledge is based on inference. Newton's law is not, for example, directly verifiable because it is im- possible to examine "all" the universe's particles to see whether they attract each other as Newton's law says. Similarly, in human genetics, many propositions have involved entities that

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