Dealing with Melanesian society, Marilyn Strathem has warned against assuming that 'at the heart of these cultures is an antinomy between "society" and "the individual"' (1988:12). And Ralston has warned us against colouring our interpretation of non-western societies with assumptions of a western, middle- class feminist discourse, especially 'those emphasizing personal self- determination' (1989:50). Arendt's thought offers insights into this critical question, namely the relation between individual and society. Arendt's focus on freedom, but a freedom which is political rather than an individual freedom, which asks for relationality, I think can prove very fertile in the endeavour of reshaping power relations to avoid the reimposition of western feminist agendas as the canonical ones.
The feminist project has moved from a critique of patriarchal rule to a more challenging assertion of reconstructing female subjectivity. In discussing a possible articulation between anthropology and feminism, Strathem has concluded that the relationship of the subject to the subject matter in feminist and anthropological practice does not allow for an easy coexistence (1987:284). Anthropology attempts to engage in a dialogue with the other, this in turn challenges 'the part of oneself embodied in the tradition to which one is heir' (1987:289). This is all unobjectionable, but let us see how feminism is characterized. Feminism 'emphasizes the conscious creation of the self by seeing its difference from the Other' (1987:290). Thus, Strathem concludes, anthropology and feminism are 'two very different radicalisms' (1987:289). Mascia-Lees, Sharpe and Cohen have challenged this conclusion on the ground that it 'seems to ignore differential power relations, failing to acknowledge that one term in each pair is historically marked by privilege' (1989:21). They assert that anthropology could greatly benefit from feminist practice, which Strathem characterized as an engagement between feminists as scholars and feminists as activists (1987:268). They further stress that the more recent thinking of feminism has been focused not so much on opposing the patriarchal sex but rather on reformulating relations between women, a range of positions that in Strathem's discussion are conflated in a homogenized representation of feminism.
I think that to assert the presence of two sexed subjectivities, avoiding 'genderized universality', and an assertion of a dialogue between us/other is part of the same political project. I find it useful here to turn to Irigaray. H er recent research suggests how a meeting between two gendered subjects might happen. Irigaray asks what a free female subject entails. This, she answers, requires a change in the language in order to
have subjective rights equivalent to those of men, in order to be able to exchange language and objects with them (Irigaray 1990:89).
avoir des droits subjectifs equivalents ä ceux des hommes, pour pouvoir &changer du langage et des objects avec eux
I found her views on maternity also very pertinent to the point I want to make: having a child without a man would
represent for some the height of freedom. This amounts to defining oneself always with respect to the other sex (Irigaray 1990:159).
faire un enfant sans komme reprisenterait pour certaines, le comble de la liberte. Cela revient toujours ä se dtfinir par rapport ä l'autre sex
Thus, maternity is reappropriated by women, not denigrated as a patriarchal constraint, but freed from its biologism. I chose this quote also because the maternal was stressed by Kanak women (see Chapter Six) to express their way of making collectivity. Strathem's characterization o f feminism's relation to anthropology (1987) does not allow for this kind of feminism. She seems to draw a line between political commitment and academic work. Closing the gap between the way we position ourselves as subjects in our society and the way we posit an encounter with the 'other' is a political perspective, which instead should influence our anthropology. I can share a context as a feminist anthropologist and engage in a dialogue with non-western women from this perspective.
I want now to consider my fieldwork experience in the light of my own particular historical and intellectual location and my engagement with Kanak women of Lifu. Taking into account the different interests and divergent powers that come into play in any study of a community, Strathem underlines that the partiality of the knowledge that we record must be acknowledged, 'the account must specify whose "view" is being described' (1988:37). I believe that the partiality of our representations comes from the interplay between what Strathem advocates and the historical, intellectual position we speak from.
I went into the field with this framework and I came out at the end of my stay convinced that I had shared a dialogue with a group of Kanak women and created a different kind of context with them. When I arrived in Drueulu, in a
socio-cultural setting where men claim that parole is their prerogative and Kanak social institutions are still working, I went to make the customary gestures to the high chief [grand chef] and then to the petty chief [petit chef] in order to be authorised to live and work in the village. But, as I started to work, I chose women as my interpreters between myself and Kanak society. The women taught me how one should behave in their society and the complexity of social interactions; they accepted sharing time and space with me; some of them shared their experiences with me as well as their knowledge; finally a woman was my Drehu language teacher. I was not interested in knowing how better or worse off than me they were, but rather in trying to share experiences. I never employed an 'index' to determine their 'object status' (see Mohanty's critique 1991b:57), nor was I interested in addressing the issue as to whether their lives and symbolic valuations had declined or been enhanced as a result of western colonialism. As Ralston (1992) has argued, the question itself is Eurocentric.23
Kanak women showed me that they, too, had engaged in a different kind of relation with me, that by sharing time and space we had created a new context by coming with me before the Conseil des Anciens [Council of Elders] the day before my departure. They agreed to come into a male space. Their presence was first objected to by the petit chef who stressed that it was I who had been summoned, not the other two women. But the women stayed and their presence was accepted. (I should say that other men did not question their presence, and one of them felt obliged to apologize to one of the women once the meeting was over.) Some men were questioning my interest in social institutions and how it related to my research on women, for which I had originally received permission to stay in the village and do research.
I restated (in French) the objective of my research and then the women clarified it, speaking both in French and in Drehu to the men present at the meeting. Pohnime and Sipo explained what I had been looking at, how I had questioned people and how my interests pertained to their being Kanak women. They challenged the assertion made by the petit chef that 'le clan c'est une affaire des hommes' [the clan is men’s business] and made it clear that they had shared with me the public knowledge regarding the functioning of the social organization (they did stress as well that they had never told me anything pertaining to secret knowledge of their clan). As local women, they felt they also
23 If the question is posed by Pacific Islander women themselves, then it might be considered
belonged to the public sphere. One of the women recounted how clan relations were crucial in deciding her marriage, in order to make the point that as a woman she was deeply affected by social relations. Not every woman could have done this. The two women who came with me into this male space were of a certain age, they belonged to the land owners' clan, they spoke both French and Drehu;24 but they were also the two women with whom I had spent most time.
As Fabian has asserted, 'For human communication to occur coevalness has to be created. Communication is, ultimately, about creating shared Time' (1983:30), and thus creating and sharing a context. A 'denial of coevalness' is 'a persistent and systematic tendency to place the referent(s) of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of anthropological discourse' (1983:31). This prevents us from engaging in a dialogue with the women and/or men we are working among. Fabian suggests there is 'an aporetic split between recognition of coevalness in ethnographic research and denial of coevalness in most anthropological theorizing and writing' (1983:35).
At the end of my fieldwork I felt that sharing a context had made the difference. I am not saying that we are the same, merely that the sharing of context, sharing of time and space, made possible a dialogue without surrendering diversities, knowing that the two atopicitd25 rooted in birth remain but within a discourse which allows a dialogue, without refusing to admit that we had and still have different agendas. Yet this is not to deny tensions and conflicts which emerged.
During a week-long workshop organized by the Women's Office of the South Pacific Commission in late 1991 for the Anglophone countries of Melanesia, in which they included Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Fiji, Kanak women were invited as observers. Some of the participants were accommodated at the Women's House in La Riviere Salee, where at that time my daughter and I were staying. I was given permission to attend as an observer.
One evening, during a culinary pause, I was sitting next to the medical doctor in charge of the AIDS program which was sponsoring the event. He had just recently arrived in New Caledonia from the United States and seemed very interested in knowing my point of view on many issues. As the conversation
24 I specify this because I am well aware o f other ethnographic contexts where only men know the lingua franca, and until the anthropologist grasps the vernacular language, she (I use it advisedly) has to communicate with women through men.
25 Italian 'neologism' from atopico, meaning 'that for which a place is not provided', here used to
proceeded, I shared with him my perplexities concerning the way the workshop structure was set up (confining Kanak women to being observers at a conference on women taking place in Noumea). The next day, one of the women of the Solomon Islanders' delegation, with whom I was sharing accommodation at the Women's House, approached me saying she had heard that the Anglophone representative of the Women's Office (whom I will refer to as B-) wanted me to leave. I was not welcome any more, being an anthropologist (something I had never kept secret). She wanted to inform me so that I would be prepared for the news. I appreciated her sensitivity, yet this did not prevent the terrible feelings I had when B- suggested that, being an anthropologist, I could have disclosed personal information shared by women during the workshop and that I had dared to criticize what they were doing. This move, she added, had been required by the women participants. Assuring her that I would have kept absolute confidence about the life histories I had listened to during the workshop was worthless. With a glacial tone, she questioned the loyalty of my words. I was mortified but, reflecting on the discourse of sharing and communication, I was able to consider the event from a different angle.26 It was impossible to believe that, just by situating myself as a woman and as an anthropologist, B- could have considered me differently.
I do not want to romanticize Kanak women, and I want to write about Kanak women without resorting to 'symbolic misery'.27 I do not want to subsume Lifuan women's experience within my own or assume that our 'truth' must be divergent. I simply wish to acknowledge that our agendas may have different priorities, all of them worthy of standing.