CAPÍTULO 3. LOS PRIMEROS AÑOS DEL PDA
3.4. Elecciones Presidenciales
There are three modes of influence on the ultimate structure of the narrative: firstly, there is the organization of the characters within the storyworld; secondly, the impact the interlocutors have upon the telling; and, finally, the impact master narratives have on the telling. The analysis, therefore, draws on Butler's performativity of identity construction. The analysis views identity constructions as a situated act, orientated toward self-revision. At the sametime, these situated constructions take place vis-a-vis the master narratives that are present in the community (Bamberg, 2003: 474). These three levels of co-construction of the narrative, and the positioning of the narrators, occur simultaneously, as illustrated in Figure 1; however, for the purposes of clarity, this study will follow Bamberg’s approach, and discuss each of the levels individually. To do so, this chapter returns to Ram Rattan Mishar’s life narrative. The chapter illustrates how my analysis moves to connect the surface structure of the life narrative with the social realm of its production. While it is possible to analyze the actions, and interactions, of any character in the life narrative, this study discusses how Ram Rattan Mishar builds, and maintains the Manager as the major antagonist in the life narrative.
The first level of analysis is ‘How are the characters positioned in relation to one other within the reported events?’ (Bamberg, 1997: 337). At this level of analysis, the focus is on the surface structure of the narrative. In particular, the focus is on the theme of the life narrative, and how characters are ordered within the storyworld. Because these are audio recordings, the discussion of the life narratives is limited to discourse features. It is useful to bear in mind Goffman’s (1974: 534-536) three levels of differentiation. Firstly, there is the narrator-as-author of the production, from whose point of view the life narrative is told. Secondly, there is the production of the self, or the narrator-as- character. Finally, there are the enacted voices of unpresent others, or the ‘not-selves’. In the analysis of Ram Rattan Mishar’s life narrative, the major ‘not-self’ is the
Manager.
Bamberg has focused on the role of characters (cf. Barthes & Duisit, 1975; Greimas, 1987; Propp, 1968), and referentials (cf. Schiffrin, 2006a). However, at this level, the analysis could also be extended to the traits, that is, “textual indicators” that signify characters (Rimmon-Kenan, 1983: 29-42). These traits, together with the role in which the character is positioned, are drawn upon by the Girmit narrator to illustrate his point
of view (level 2). This point of view gives further information for level 3, the culture’s ‘frames of reference’ (Chatman, 1990: 73).
The Manager is the giver of the land to Ram Rattan Mishar:
R:
to (.h) pachīs chein
TOP fifty chain
creaky voice__________________________ jab ek ādmi ke ↑ rahe (.) jamīn
when one man GEN AUX.IP land
R:
when a man has fifty chains of land
0hukum se0 official INS
given officially
to weise jamīn ↑me (.h)
TOP RFLX land LOC
in that type of land
ek sāl dhān lagāwa kotou (par)h one year rice plant.PFV lease LOC
one year (I) planted rice on lease
In the above excerpt, Ram Rattan Mishar sets up the authority of the Manager. But later, Ram Rattan Mishar readdresses this positioning. He indicates that this giving is associated with pre-meditated deception, which forms the complicating action of the life narrative. Through this sequencing of incidents, the Manager is now portrayed as a man who is violating his position of authority:
R:
tab kāte ke jab taim bhe
then cut.IP LOC when time happen
R:
then when it was time to harvest
to u bole TOP 3.SG said he said nāhī NEG no
hām jamīn beche ↑deit ↑he (.h)
1.SG land sell.INF do.IP be.PRS
I will sell the land
At the second level of analysis, the emphasis is on‘How does the speaker position him- or herself to the audience?’ (Bamberg, 1997: 337). At this level of analysis, the interest is on the performative interaction of both the Girmit narrator and the other interlocutors
the identities of the narrators. I focus here on Ram Rattan Mishar’s evaluations, and how these evaluations allow the interlocutors to perceive his point of view.
The complicating action of the narrative hinges on the dialogue, and the manner in which it is presented to position Ram Rattan Mishar-as-character, and the Manager as the ‘not-self’. For the most part, Ram Rattan Mishar’s narrative is composed of actions of the Manager in the form of dialogue, and Ram Rattan Mishar’s, again, largely verbal, reactions. The excerpt below has been chunked in terms of speech acts (Bakhtin, 1984: 195). Speech acts A and B are the beginning of the main complicating action, which is the Manager’s prohibition of Ram Rattan Mishar’s harvesting of the rice, and Ram Rattan Mishar’s response. The remainder of the speech acts, in the excerpt, are evaluations of the two participants’ actions:
A. Slight acceleration of speech
>to hām bolā
TOP 1.SG said
I said
hama dhān hām kāt ↑lei
1.SG .GEN rice 1.SG cut do
I cut my rice
tab ↑becho < (.h)
then sell.IMP
then sell (it)
B. ↓to bole TOP says he says ↑nahi NEG no ↑hām bech ↑debe 1.SG sell do.INF
I will sell the land
C. >are EXCLM EXCLAMATION hām bolā 1.SG said I said
hamār dhān laga ki<
1.SG.GEN rice plant.PFV that
my rice is planted D. Higher pitch ↑bole says (he) says _______________________________________ >↑hām = ↑nei =↑jānit =↑dhān=huwān< (.h)
1.SG NEG know.IP rice.MOD
E. to hām bolā
TOP 1.SG said
I said
>dhān nahi eisā kariyo
rice NEG this.way do.IMP
I said if (you) don’t do this way with the rice to hām TOP 1.SG I ↑jāno know.IMP (you) know
↑mahābo karab ↓tumhe < (.h)
beat do.INF 2.SG.FAM
will beat you up
F. to bole TOPIC says (he) says Higher pitch ↑nahi: NEG no ____________________ ↑ hām bech ↓deb 1.SG sell do.INF
I will sell (it)
In life narratives, the turning point of the narration is why “a protagonist has violated social expectations” (Ochs & Capps, 2001: 46). One of the main functions of the narration is to rationalize the protagonist’s behaviour. Ram Rattan Mishar presents himself as having been goaded beyond human endurance to behave in this manner. The narration, therefore, portrays the moral stance of Ram Rattan Mishar: that he is aware of the cultural norms and expectations of appropriate behaviour towards the Manager of his plantation; that in attempting to hit the Manager, he has violated, or transgressed this moral ground, but that he will attempt, through sequencing of incidents transpired, to put forth his point of view that he was justified in behaving in this manner (cf. Ochs & Capps, 2001: 46, 51; Huggins, Haritos-Fatouros & Zimbardo, 2002: 87). The
interlocutors’ main function is to assess the reportability and credibility of the narration in order to accept or agree with this point of view.
In the excerpt above, Ram Rattan Mishar shifts from his own voice into an enactment of a new frame, one which involves the embedding of a conversation between the Manager and Ram Rattan Mishar-as-character (Goffman, 1981: 128, 151). In doing so, Ram
Rattan Mishar shifts from his deictic centre, that is, the paralinguistic features the interlocutors have come to identify with Ram Rattan Mishar-as-character, to a second deictic centre, that of the Manager. It is through holding the paralinguistic features of the primary deictic centre as reference values, in this case, pitch, that the interlocutors understand that there has been a change in character (Couper-Kuhlen, 1998: 3).
Ram Rattan Mishar introduces the Manager’s voice through the reference marker: (He) says. However, Ram Rattan Mishar does not directly provide vocal characteristics to the Manager’s speech. The Manager’s first words in the excerpt form the complicating action. Following this speech act, he is portrayed as stubbornly refusing to allow Ram Rattan Mishar to harvest (D and F). It is these words that are given a separate voice, marked through a higher pitch, fast tempo, and repetition of nahi ‘no’, giving the impression of childlike stubborness behind the utterance.
Ram Rattan Mishar’s own response, as character, is marked through a return to the tempo of the primary deictic centre. In contrast to the above speech acts of the Manager, Ram Rattan Mishar’s speech acts (C and E) are more varied, ranging from factual (C) to threatening evaluations (E), portraying Ram Rattan Mishar as doing all he can to try and persuade the Manager to see things from Ram Rattan Mishar’s point of view.
This production of the ‘self’ and ‘not-self’ is a situated act (Goodwin & Goodwin, 2004). Remembering that this performance is recipient designed (Couper-Kuhlen, 1998: 10) it is possible that by constructing the ‘not-self’ or alterity (Hastings & Mannings, 2004), Ram Rattan Mishar constructs a character, who depicts, and is responsible for, another moral stance (cf. Goffman, 1981: 128). As Hastings & Mannings (2004: 301) mention:
stereotyped, essentialized voices of exemplary others are crucial to anchoring the linguistic system by which speakers index their own situational and social positions.
Hence, the words uttered, and the manner of their utterance establishes the Manager as the ‘other’ in terms of the life narrative, but this ‘otherness’ is further extended, and
emphasized, through the overt stereotyped generalizations into the real world (cf. Agha, 2005; Hill, 2005; Meek, 2006):
R:
ghora =↑ ha:m =↑se ↑khou =↑howe
Englishman 1.SG LOC greedy happen.IP R:
Englishmen are greedier than us
Here, Ram Rattan Mishar distances himself slightly from the embedding, speaking directly to the interlocutors listening to the production, and seeks a return to the positioning prior to the embedded conversation. This is seen through his return to the primary deictic centre in his tempo, and rhythm. Hence, Ram Rattan Mishar straddles both worlds through the self-as-narrator, who is producing the words the interlocutors hear, and also, remaining as an embedded character in the storyworld (Goffman, 1981:149). Moreover, by placing this ‘not-self’ in contrast to himself-as-character in the storyworld, through a play on language and cultural insight, Ram Rattan Mishar-as- narrator, in the social realm, establishes himself as ‘one of us’ with the Fiji Indian interlocutors (cf. De Fina, 2000: 133).
In the final level of analysis, ‘How does the speaker position him-or herself vis-à-vis the master narratives?’ (Bamberg, 1997: 337) the focus is on how the life narrative
compares with master narratives. These master narratives, in the case of Girmit life narratives, include stereotyped notions of how the Girmityas came to Fiji as labourers, the Girmityas’ experiences of indenture, as well as the stereotyped positionings and agencies of all the character types involved in the stages of indenture, as presented in Chapter 2. These stereotypes are present in the community’s collective knowledge, to which the interlocutors have access. Foucault’s definition of ‘discourse’ explains how such master narratives operate:
… in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality
As discussed in Chapter 3, the life narratives of Girmit were by ex-Girmityas, told to a Fiji Indian journalist. The narratives were told with the understanding that they would be played on public radio for other Fiji Indians to hear. Hence, these master narratives form part of the ‘cultural baggage’, which these Fiji Indian interlocutors bring with them into their understanding, and into their contributions to the narration (Seaton, 2008; Squire, 2000).
That these master narratives are not fixed in time and space, but change as the dominant discourses prevalent within the community change, needs to also be borne in mind (Bamberg, 2004c: 359-263). Suffice to say that at the time of the interviews, and the time when these interviews were played on public broadcast, and even at this point in time in the write up of this study, the master narratives are reinforced through the voice of the academic writing about Girmit.
Lal (2000: xii-xiii) sums up the point of view of master narratives of Girmit:
The story of indenture is full of drama and tragedy, raising issues which will find resonance in other places and historical contexts. How does a subaltern group, powerless and isolated, cope with the demands and expectations of the dominant group? How and in what ways does an immigrant community, illiterate and leaderless, cut off from its source and cooped up in a hostile environment, reconstitute itself from the surviving fragments of culture and memory?
Lal is one of the foremost academics on Girmit, and advocates further research on the Girmityas’ agency (Lal, 1993: 187-215). For these reasons I have chosen to look at one of his positionings of the Girmityas in his more recent work. In the quotation above, which is used here as a typical example of the master narratives, the master narrator adopts the position of the representative voice of the Girmityas. The Girmityas are positioned as being “powerless and isolated”, “illiterate and leaderless”, “in a hostile environment”.
These positionings in the normative discourse of Girmit are known to both the Girmit narrator, and other interlocutors, as is illustrated in Ram Rattan Mishar’s narration. On the one hand, Ram Rattan Mishar employs the positions of culturally ordered
stereotypes present in the master narratives at level 3, to uphold his point of view at level 2, that the Manager is justifiably the antagonist of the story, and that this narrative has high reportability. On the other hand, and again at level 3, both the characters of the Manager and the Inspector, as discussed below, are depicted as acting out of ‘type’ (Rimmon-Kenan, 1983: 40-42), but for different purposes.
At level 2, in addition to positioning the Manager as the ‘other’, Ram Rattan Mishar also holds him in a position of blame. Shaver (1985: 4) defines the assignment of blame as:
…a particular sort of social explanation. It is the outcome of a process that begins with an event having consequences, involves judgments about causality, personal responsibility, and possible mitigation.
In the narrative, through levels 1 and 2, the Manager is depicted as one who is greedy, deceitful and manipulative. In this respect, the portrayal of the Manager is in
accordance with that of master narratives of indenture at level 3, where managers and overseers are often portrayed as being vindictive, and often overstepping the line of good governance on the plantation (Lal, 2000: 179-181, 204; Naidu, 2004: 48-59). Moreover, the manager of a plantation was regarded with fear by the Girmityas, as he had the authority to use force, if he so wished. In addition the manager is generally portrayed in master narratives of indenture as someone who demanded, rather than asked.
Ram Rattan Mishar employs this character of the Manager of the master narratives, but subverts the actions above held as ‘type’ in the master narratives of the managers of the Girmit plantations:
R:
wahi sāb batāis
that.same sahib tell.3.SG.PFV
R:
hamkā: (.) dhān tum bech↑yo
1.SG.GEN rice 2.SG.FAM sell.IMP
will (you) sell the rice to me
hām bolā 1.SG said I said hā AFM yes
That the Manager is asking a question is indicated by the rising of the intonation at the end, despite the words sequenced as a demand. The positioning of the Manager asking Ram Rattan Mishar if he would sell the rice to him in sub-narrative 7, prior to the incidents in the complicating action, functions, at level 3, as a counter-positioning to the stereotyped positionings in master narratives. This act, when seen in retrospect,
contributes to the build up towards the Manager’s attempted manipulation of Ram Rattan Mishar, at level 2.
Ram Rattan Mishar also employs the character of the Inspector of Immigrants.
Generally the inspector of immigrants was an employee of the CSR Company, as were the plantation authorities. Hence, according to the master narratives, the inspector would generally take the side of the plantation authorities, rather than the labourers, in any dispute between the plantation authorities and the Girmityas (Gillion, 1962: 112; Lal, 2000: 50, 172-173). In other words, the inspector is positioned in the master narratives as another antagonist. Furthermore, the master narratives describe the Girmityas as often feeling embittered by the legal system (Gillion, 1962: 115).
At level 3, in light of the above discussion on the Girmityas’ lack of faith in the legal system, and the inspectors of immigrants, Ram Rattan Mishar’s action is an agentive act of defiance against the Manager, and a desire to be seen as an individual who has done all in his power, within the “parameters of accommodation” (Munro, 1993: 22), or legal boundaries. This challenge counters Lal’s description above of the Girmitya. In
addition, and countering the character type of the inspector of the master narratives, in Ram Rattan Mishar’s life narrative, the Inspector supports Ram Rattan Mishar, rather than the Manager. The Inspector’s support allows Ram Rattan Mishar to emphasize that there was irrefutable evidence that the Manager was attempting to deceive him.
Through Ram Rattan Mishar-as-character’s own actions, and through the resolution, Ram Rattan Mishar’s narrative forms a counter-narrative to the master narratives of indenture. This countering of the positioning of the Girmityas in the master narratives is further emphasized in Ram Rattan Mishar’s coda, where agency lies in the hands of the Girmityas:
R:
Softer, more creaky voice_____________________________ to hamlog das bāra ↑ādmi ek ghut rahi
TOP 1.PL ten twelve man one close.group AUX.PST R:
we had been ten or twelve men in a close knit group
_______________
sab kām karou he [o…o ]= all work do be.PRS
(we were the ones who) got all the work done
According to Talbot, Bibace, Bokhour, & Bamberg (1996: 2):
...the discourse setting of the interview is more likely to elicit a detached, reflexive stance that typically pulls narrators back toward acceptance of the master narrative
The increased likelihood of hearing narratives that rectify the master narratives, therefore, emphasizes the importance of any counter narratives found in such a public interview context. Such counter narratives “…can function as challenges and forms of resistance to master narratives” (Talbot, Bibace, Bokhour, & Bamberg, 1996).