There's been a bit of an anthropological kerfuffle over the American Anthropological Assocation's (AAA) decision to remove a (rather retro) reference to science from it's 'Statement of Purpose'. 

I'm not an AAA member, and it's highly unlikely I ever will be, so I get to look on with bemusement. 

Over at Labour uncut, Kevin Meagher last week had a bash at drawing an analogy between the Lib Dems and the C of E.  Nah.  The Lib Dems are more likely the Methodists of politics. 

But I like this analogy lark, and I reckon anthropology is all a bit Anglican. 

Anthropology, in it's broadest sense, studies people.  About three seconds thought is all it should take to appreciate the nebulousness of this.  Study people?  Which?  Where?  How?  Doing what? 

So anthropology is a big disparate group of scholars affiliated to various universities, professional associations, interest groups and committees all united, however vaguely, by a shared interest in studying people.  (That, and wearing sturdy, comfortable footwear.) 

And like the regular throes of the similarly disparate Anglican Communion over scriptural interpretation, there are regular anthropological throes over how to interpret the idea of studying people. 

Structuralism!  Functionalism!  Structural-functionalism!  Clifford Geertz!  Writing Culture!  "We're not a science!"  "Yes we are!"  Sahlins vs Obeyesekere!  Spats in journals!  Spats in conferences!  Spats in tearooms! 

In anthropology, as in Anglicanism, things can descend to a bicker-a-thon pretty quickly.  Sometimes a good round of combat can help us understand more about who we are and what we want to do.  Other times it can be over something that's just daft as a brush. 

There can be splits, like that between the RAI and the ASA, and there are plenty of interest groups promoting everything from the anthropology of Britain to advocating for gay and lesbian anthropologists. 

Because of how all this to-ing and fro-ing looks to the casual observer, there are periodically fingers pointed by media pundits and sociologists.  Such rumours of demise and announcements of crisis are, in both cases, greatly exaggerated. 

And anyway, the science hardliners could always set up an Ordinariate. 

The Big Society is quickly becoming one of the key themes of this blog, which I didn't quite expect when I started it.  I have commented before that I have a general sympathy for the concept, but, as recent posts should have made clear, that doesn't mean I have any qualms about critiquing it. 

Since I've been following the Big Society, I've been excited to see a couple of emerging trends.  The first is the Labour response, for which we should be watching Jon Cruddas and Hazel Blears.  The second is the CofE response, and, following the general synod debate, there has been comment from Bishop Nick Baines and from theologian John Milbank which I'm hoping to address in a future post.  I think it's through these responses, which are simultaneously embracing and critical, that we're going to start seeing the Big Society terrain being really mapped out. 

Anyway, what I want to do in this post is talk a bit more about why, as an anthropologist of Britain, I'm interested in the Big Society. 

In a recent-ish post over at Savage Minds, Chris Kelty gave as his 2nd rule for anthropology bloggers:

Blog about anthropology.  Most of our anthropology brethren break this rule, and blog primarily about what’s in the news.  But who needs an anthropology blog to do that?  If it’s about what’s in the news, but also about what anthropology has to say: much better.

Well, the Big Society is in the news ... and I think anthropology has a lot to say about it. 

My research is around issues of tradition, heritage, nostalgia and rural communities.  I'm chasing the suspicion that the past is back as a viable political narrative.  I think that the Big Society is part of that.  I might be wrong (and proving yourself wrong is a big part of research), but that's where I'm coming from at the moment. 

More generally, there are a lot of questions that "we" (e.g. social scientists, theologians, lefties, progressives, radicals, thinkers and dreamers) should be, and are, asking.  Questions like:

• Who and/or what does the Big Society exclude?
• Will the Big Society replace public sector employment?
• How might the Big Society shape the future? 

I see value in asking these, and many other, questions for two reasons.  Firstly, it's by asking these questions that the Big Society agenda will be wrested from the badlands of Tory re-branding.  Secondly, it's by asking these questions that we can understand a lot more about Britain today ... and where it might be heading in the next decade. 

A new year began yesterday: the first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year.  Time and the liturgical year go together in interesting ways, not least because in 52 weeks of 'normal' time the church attempts to pack in the events of a lifetime.  It's actually less than that because the space between Christmas (birth) and Easter (death and resurrection) is only about 4 months.  Easter as well sees a slipping into Hebrew time; and the Northern hemisphere seasonal time inherent in the liturgy plays oddly down in the Southern hemisphere. 

The liturgical year is kind of like temporal boggle.  And it rinses and repeats every year. 

Over lunch I was reading Shirley Williams' autobiography, Climbing the Bookshelves.  It's early days yet in the narrative and I was mostly reading about Anthony Eden and the Suez crisis.  But I was quite struck at how many similar political issues there were in the 50s/60s as there are now; the welfare state high among them.  And a central motif for the Labour party then, as now, was the idea of 'listening' to the people.  The more things change, the more they stay the same, I suppose. 

Time, or at least how it is conceptualised and understood, is anthropological.  In doing research on 'tradition', I'm often reminded of just how different (and, indeed, multiple) the ways in which we live with time are from the simple ticking of watches and crossing off of dates. 

In Time Maps, Eviatar Zerubavel took on the rather ambitious task of reducing/interpreting many different temporal conceptualisations into graphs.  There are zig-zags and circles and striving arrows, wobbles and collapses.  How we actually think about time, this demonstrates, is not always in alignment with modern emphases on progress and newness. 

It's something I often find quite odd about the value that is placed on the word 'progressive', because many of the things it gets attached to, from politics to Christianity, don't really relate so much to progress' striving arrow.  They're zig-zags and circles and wobbles. 

I've been doing some work for a conference paper on the temporal orientations of early Socialism, and some of those ideas will be appearing on this blog soon-ish. 

Now I'm running out of time to finish this little introductory musing!

David Cameron and his box of surprises strikes again.  Is the UK about to follow in the footsteps of Bhutan and measure gross national happiness?  The nef are certainly excited, since they've been advocating the measurement of wellbeing rather than an all-out focus on GDP for a long time.  Jules Peck at LFF is also keen on the idea.  Apparently Cameron had earlier gone quiet on an idea of 'General Wellbeing', and the Spectator wonders what's happened to make talking about happiness worthwhile again. 

Of course there have been a few inevitable sniggers over the idea of measuring wellbeing coming so close on the heels of welfare cuts.  On which topic (the IDS cuts, not the sniggering), Kate Green has some insightful comment. 

Over now to my regular C of E slot and we have a gloriously learned piece about the flying bishops from Diarmaid MacCulloch.  Bishop Alan Wilson, fast becoming a regular to watch over at the Guardian's CiF, considers the Anglican covenant.  Elsewhere, the Church is copping flak for trying to flog Auckland Castle. 

Totally unrelated, but I rather enjoyed this potted bio of Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson, who was one of the first female MPs (and included in Churchill's war cabinet, no less). 

Sociological Images have got a graph up from David Nutt's work on drug harm in Britain.  The rankings are very interesting, but so are the differences between 'harm to others' and 'harm to users'.  Let's pause for a moment in a dream of sensible policy.

Over at the C of E, Thinking Anglicans are reporting that 50 clergy are set to join the Ordinariate.  Some of them will be retired.  The Church has 1338 ordination candidates in training, at last count.  (Just a thought with which to read the inevitable Church in Crisis! headlines.)  Back to the flying bishops, Liturgy wonders if the faux-bishop will be having a faux-farewell? 

The IDS welfare white paper has hit and The Spectator has helpfully read it and come up with one of those ten things you need to know lists.  A big part of the whole thing is the replacement of a raft of welfare payment possibilities with a universal credit system.  But, from what I can tell, the changes won't be coming in until 2013 and will take until 2017 to be fully up and running.  What might happen then if the Coalition doesn't exist anymore? 

Dan Hodges wonders who will be Ed's guru.  I'm pretty interested in the suggestion that there might be a Labour turn to Bauman. 

An independent commission on high pay has been launched.  It is called the High Pay Commission.  It will tell us that high pay is too high.

Simon Schama (The history tsar?) has come up with 6 bits of British history that every student should know.  The Guardian book blog is challenging readers to come up with 6 of their own.  I shall think on.  What do you think? 

Seatbelts on, please.  This is going to be a biggie. 

There has been quite a lot of comment about the student protest.  I tend to agree with this suggestion from The Spectator that the violence is likely to help rather than hinder the Coalition's cause. 

There has also been a lot of political moaning about the European Court's judgment that British prisoners must have the right to vote.  I'm with Kate Green: so they should. 

Off course the other big news has been IDS and his work-for-the-dole scheme.  Well, it isn't quite.  The idea, apparently, is to pack long-term (12 months+) unemployed off on a month's community service.  Excellent comment from Jackie Ashley (who took a Guardian comments bashing for it).  More discussion on the carrot and the stick from ToryDiary.  (Though must we have the spurious 'supporting families' bits ... says this daughter-of-multiply-reconstituted-families.)

Ross McKibbin in the LRB has a must-read on the current political/economic situation.  Add this to a very interesting perspective over on the Inequalities blog on 'why the welfare state doesn't matter any more'. Elsewhere, Sunny Hundal writes on why the left shouldn't oppose all cuts and Jonathan Todd argues that Labour must consider (and articulate) multiple futures, not just certain post-cut doom.  

Oldham post-Woolas (you done good, Harriet) is shaping up to be one to watch.  ToryDiary look at whether it should be given to the Lib Dems ... or if the Tories should put up a good fight.  Regardless, we might see here the North's first real political comment on how the Coalition is going. 

Amidst all of this political talk, Kerim Friedman's look at Bourdieu and the role of the public intellectual hits the spot nicely. 

Over at the CofE, the final reccommendations from the Faith and the Future of the Countryside conference have been released.  It has been a bit of a speaking out week for the Church with ++Rowan expressing grave concerns about welfare reforms.  (Although that Telegraph link dramatically hypes up 'church in crisis' over the flying bishops!)

Michael Young (author of 1957's Family and Kinship in East London) remembered.  His life and work calls, Paul Richards argues, for a Good, not a Big, society. 

I reckon the 70s are fast becoming the new 60s as the darling decade of scholarly research.  Andrew O'Hagan writes on the 70s style. 

Whew!  Can I have the weekend now? 

I have been trying for some time this afternoon to write about the flying bishops.  Not because it's the most enormous thing since the Reformation and clearly shows that the CofE is in crisis.  It's nothing of the sort: 97% of CofE congregations don't require the services of a flying bishop. 

Rather, I think it's a good decision for them.  As Bishop Alan Wilson commented, they have found their "true spiritual home".  (Although what Roman Catholics who don't get the Ordinariate goody-bag will think about this remains, it seems, to be seen.)  And, although there are noises about replacement, I do hope that this will mark the beginning of the end for the flying bishopric because I really don't think that those who find reasons to discriminate should be entitled to special allowances that enable them to continue to do so. 

And that's why I've found it hard to write about this.  I have admired the many elegant and compassionate posts (for example, Benny, Lesley and Kelvin) who have not stooped to the pie-throwing that I struggle to avoid.  I struggle not to do that because this is a news story about people who believe that what's between your legs is more important than what's in your heart.  And that just doesn't fly. 

Although it would play brilliantly as Greek comedy. 

Don't be shocked, but homosexuality and women bishops continue to be is-sues in the CofE.  The Bishop of Wakefield has been up in my own stomping ground of Calderdale and has some sensible comments on homophobia and the church.  Also, the flying bishops appear to be finally flying off. 

A small stack of interesting political bits and pieces: Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions (sort of the anti-IDS, I guess) Douglas Alexander has been busily pointing out the obvious flaw in OsCam's welfare cuts, i.e., people can't go and get jobs if there aren't any.  On the "cut this, not that" front the always-good Simon Jenkins asks if Britain really needs the military?  And another whiff of completely unexpected Conservatism around bugger all being done about bank bonuses. 

The Heritage Crafts Association chair's report is an interesting glimpse on what they've been up to over the last few months. 

Finally, Kea plums are up for protected status through the EU. 

I have been hesitating throughout this week about writing a post on the comprehensive spending review.  Since most of the posts and articles I've been reading have been CSR-related, I haven't posted any of them here whilst I contemplate.  So, this handful of links is a bit of a CSR black hole. 

Having said that, the Inequalities blog have a good article on how the coalition has 'found it so easy to cut benefits for the poor'.  This is more about social attitudes than the CSR itself and it's very much worth a look. 

The North-South divide has been cropping up in the news with concerns the CSR cuts will aggravate it.  So it must be John Bulmer time.  Still, oldies but goodies: John Bulmer's North.  (Vaguely related note: I've just started reading Helen Jewell's book about the North-South divide, and I had never before twigged that Northumbria = North of the Humber.)

The Heritage Crafts Association are reporting that skills minister John Hayes has highlighted support for craft skills in a recent speech at the RSA.  This is good news for the HCA, but 1) how seriously do we take this as an indication of potential government policy? and 2) if we do, and we read it alongside the Browne report on higher ed (and do read Stefan Collini's article in the LRB on that front), should we be worried about it as a vision for education which isn't really doing any favours for the social status of traditional crafts? 

Completely unrelated to any of the above (unless we get into spectral ethnography; but that's only my new favourite thing on Tuesdays), Peter Ackroyd has a new book out about the English ghost.  Related to the spectres of English Catholicism, apparently.

And speaking of ... the CofE blogosphere has been firing busily over news not only of the ordinariate but of every women-back-in-the-kitchen brigade charging out to form their own non-secret society.  As I imagine it, a Society of St Teatowel and St Nappy meeting would consist of a chorus of "more tea, vicar?" from 1950s housewives.  It could all go horribly wrong when the housewives turn out to actually be Sharon's Dita Von Teese-themed hen night. 

Two things inspired me this morning to contemplate a blog post that isn't just a random collection of links I've been clinging onto until they finally make firefox crash.  Firstly, there is a new issue of Anthropological Forum [paywall] out.  The theme is 'Creations: Imagination and Innovation'.  Oooh!  And, secondly, Messrs Mouse and Holdsworth have been delving into the contentious territory of Harvest (not to be confused with 1972's finest), which delights me 'cos I study tradition and that, y'know. 

I did at first think that I could have written two separate posts, full of lovely, well thought out words and timely analysis.  Then I regained my senses with a nice cup of tea.  So, being an intrepid sort who is still actually living out of a backpack (please send your unwated chests of drawers c/o the St James op shop), I thought instead that I'd go for the time-honoured anthropological technique of cramming it all into a jar, shaking it up a bit, and hoping the end result doesn't make me look like I've been hanging with the shamans a bit much.

(Yes, yes, two paragraphs already without a sensible thought.)

So, Anth Forum.  (And as a side note, Jeannette Mageo's Samoa/historical anthro article [paywall] this issue is really rather good.)  Joel Robbins has a lovely afterword about anthropological approaches to imagination and creativity [paywall].  He suggests that though we tend to think of imagination as mental freedom it is actually culturally bound.  But he doesn't wave culture about as the scholarly trump card; he goes on to argue that "[if] such culturally defined freedom is the best kind of freedom human beings can hope for, then anthropologists ought to take it seriously as a kind of freedom and appreciate the possibilities it affords and the issues it raises".  Then he does a little hop from imagination to innovation, where he talks about the relationship of innovation to tradition with a nice reminder that innovations are constantly being incorporated into traditions. 

Now Anth Forum lingers in Australasia, so our serving of imagination and innovation is served with lashings of traditional anthropological stomping ground.  But Robbins' afterword is begging, screaming, and throwing a right tantrum to be taken off to visit Britain.  It wants to do a proper traditional tour; catch a bit of rake making, maybe buy a spoon or two.  So why not bring a bit of cheese for Mouse and have a swing of the thurible while it's there? 

Harvest is actually rather old.  To get functionalist about it, suddenly having a heap of food (but having had to work like mad to get it) is a pretty good excuse for a party.  But it was olded up a bit more and sanctified as a tradition by the Victorians, who were really rather good at that sport (see also: Christmas).  So, the C of E have a service for it.  This is part of Mouse's 'plaint: as he squeaks "it now has virtually no meaning in the modern world".  (I have to stomp my foot a little here since technically the nineteenth century was modernity.  And, partly because of that, I am a firm believer that we are still really Victorians.)  Mouse is also a metropolitan, and not a fieldmouse, so he wonders quite how relevant Harvest is in the inner-city ... and outside it too, since rurality is not what it used to be (if it ever was).  He's keen on updating the tradition.  Kelvin has come out in sympathy, though he reports his efforts to Bring Back Lammas haven't gone exactly down a treat. 

I reckon it's pretty interesting, looking at these imaginings of Harvest, that Mouse wants to overhaul the tradition with some updated, urban ideas (and even with a possible whiff of the dread Americanisation), whereas Kelvin's plunging back to Lammas (sometimes we find new things in the old, as ++Rowan has also written).  There's more here too in whether innovating traditions should happen incrementally (this is already happening with Harvest donations) or whether there's a point where we turf it and start again (which is essentially what the Victorians did with the Harvest that we're talking about in the first place).  Aaaand ... these urban responses do seem to contrast with Geoffrey Walker's 2002 research in rural Somerset [paywall], where he found that the demand from parishioners for these sorts of services was actually on the up: imaginings bound up in cultural ideas about the rural and urban, perhaps?  So much stuff to make an anthropologist of Britain oooh and aaah!

So what do I think about Harvest?  Well, I'm a sucker for a bit of rural tradition.  But I do reserve a special hatred for Lark Rise to Candleford.