HOW WE THINK THEY THINK BY MAURICE F.L BLOCH

CHAPTER 7: Time, Narratives and the Multiplicity of the Representations of the Past

INTRODUCTION

• Maurice Bloch: currently Emeritus Professor at LSE.
• Research site: a remote forest in Madagascar inhabited by the Zafimaniry.
• Bloch: relates social anthropology to linguistics and cognitive psychology.
• "How We Think They Think" :
• Anthropological Approaches to Cognition, Memory, and Literacy

CHAPTER 7:

• Questioning the primacy of narratives
• First narrative: Bloch revisits the Zafimaniry after a time
• Second narrative: the 1947 anti- colonial revolt
• Distinguishing between 'Tantara' and 'Anganon'
• Beyond verbal narratives

THE PRIMACY OF NARRATIVES?

• Thesis: basis of cognition can be discovered in the contents of narratives
• Opposing: Ricoeur, Sahlin and Levi-Strauss.
• Ricoeur: time becomes human time only in so far as it is constructed in a narrative
• Levi-Strauss:people live in a world entirely con- structed by their coherent and exliaustive historical narratives wliich not only affect their representatims but consequently their actions

PAUL RICOEUR

• German hermeneutics tradition- Hans-Georg Gadamer
• Ricoeur: 'Time becomes human time only in so far as it is constructed in a narrative'
• Ricoeur: 'a story is significant in so far as it accords with the experience of living in time'
• Peter Winch: attack on a universal rationality
• Bloch: both protecting the 'truths' of Christianity from scientific rationality

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS

• 'hot' and 'cold' societies
• People live in a world constructed by their coherent and exhaustive historical narratives.
• These narratives not only affect their representations but consequently their actions.
• The study of a people's narratives reveals their world view

Marshall Sahlins

• Argues most strongly that different people narrate history differently.
• Therefore they experience the passage of time differentially.
• 'different cultural orders have their own modes of historical orders, consciousness and determination'
• Two kinds of history: divine kinship- ancient Hawaii and Fiji/cumulate of individual action (the West)
• Basis of cognition can be discovered in the analysis of the style and contents af narratives

BLOCHS RESPONSE

• Argues against :
• the notion that cognition of time and other fundamental categories is constructed through narratives
• an examination of narratives will reveal directly a particular group of peoples' concepts of the world they inhabit

RETURN TO THE ZAFIMANIRY

• Journey and Arrival
• Narrating to the 'adoptive family'
• Narrating to the rest of the village
• Details
• Repeating the process

BLOCHS CONCLUSIONS

• How the repetition of the interchange built up a narrative of his absence and return
• Fixing the narrative- elders of adoptive family ensure consistency of account
• An un informative double narrative [narrative as a formalised dialogue]
• Narrative consisted of two stereotypic separate sequences of people and places evoked in past space and time
• Sequences joined together by perfect orchestration of the performance of the narrative

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• The dominant impression of "rejoining" was particularly well created by the explanation of his coming
• Transformation of the arbitrariness of his coming to an inevitable and morally appropriate sequence
• Narrative: poor on information but strong on establishing order. Predictability of journey made it acceptable
• Reordering of narrative into a predictable pattern transformed the specificity of events to a prototypical present
• In Strauss's terms: the creation of an approved narrative a case of cold society abolishing eventuality.

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