For Abner Cohen (1974) man is fundamentally two dimensional: he is both Man-the-Symbolist and Man-the-Political-Being, and these two functions are in constant and inseparable interaction. Power is no less than what is expressed in any relation of domination and subordination, and is therefore an aspect of all social relationships. To think of power in terms of physical force or coercion is to miss entirely the subtlety with which it is usually manifested, for in day-to-day transactions power is “objectified, developed, maintained, expressed or camouflaged” by means of symbolism. All symbolism—or virtually all—has a political component.
Directly political communication, no matter how eloquent, may not be particularly effective. A blatantly political speech is incapable of further elaboration or manipulation and may actually be divisive; the funeral of a statesman, on the other hand, resonates with unimpeachable and deeply felt meaning—a reaffirmation of cultural values, ideas of continuity and rebirth, and much more. Politics is thus most powerfully manifested in overtly nonpolitical institutions such as kinship, marriage and other rites of passage, ethnicity, and various group ceremonies.
POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 106
If symbolism is virtually synonymous with culture, and if all sym- bolism is political, one might suspect that Cohen (1979: 81) has postu- lated that “political anthropology is nothing other than social anthropology brought up to a high degree of abstraction.” This direct quote from Cohen is one for which he admits to having been widely criticized. Symbolism and politics would seem to be such wide-ranging concepts that they lose meaning, almost as though one were to resort to God as a primary element in scientific explanation. If this were truly so, Cohen would rate no more attention from his colleagues than so-called scientific creationists rate from evolutionary biologists. Fortunately, how- ever, Cohen is quite capable of bringing these abstractions down to earth, defining them precisely, and demonstrating their application in specific incidents, as he has done in some insightful political ethnographies.
All symbolism is bivocal: it serves both existential and political ends. It is existential in the sense that it integrates the individual personality while relating that individual to his group. A painful puberty initiation ritual involving circumcision, for example, will be a powerful personal experience in which the child feels that he is in some way transformed, that his old self has been obliterated and a new, more adaptive self has been reborn in its place. At the same time, the ritual will be an oppor- tunity for a lineage to come together to reaffirm its unity, for the my- thology of origin to be reiterated, for decisions to be made, for leaders to present themselves, and for males to reaffirm their moral and physical domination over females, elders over young, and wise over merely strong. Although symbolism is largely unconscious and is virtually con- stant in every person’s life, its political component is most clearly man- ifested in the compressed dramas of ritual and ceremony. A study of these within any particular group will reveal the location of power as well as how it is manipulated.
In The Politics of Elite Culture (1981), Cohen applied these general concepts to politics in a small African nation. Sierra Leone was then a nation state of about 2.5 million people, of which something less than 2 percent—nearly all of whom lived in the capital, Freetown—were Cre- oles who viewed themselves as the descendants of slaves emancipated by the British. They were not an ethnic group, a tribal group, or a class (many non-Creoles shared the same economic status), and their relation to slave ancestors was partly mythical, because their kinship system was sufficiently open that many had been incorporated who could make no claims to special ancestry. They possessed virtually no executive power in the state, lacked any access to physical force, and had only the most negligible role as businessmen or producers of tangible goods.
The Creoles were not only a closely-knit, ongoing group, however; they also controlled enormous political power within Sierra Leone. To understand how they accomplished this, Cohen examined the manner in which symbolism was used to create the mystique of eliteness and to legitimize that mystique outside their own ranks so that others would accept their claim to power.
Elitism is a way of life. People outside the group can be trained, through schooling or apprenticeship, in the technical and administrative skills necessary for government, but one can join the elite only through undergoing a long period of socialization. Elitism derives not from wealth or specific social functions, but from a vast and complex body of symbols including manners, styles of dress, accent, recreational activ- ities, rituals, ceremonies, and a host of other traits. Skills and abilities that can be taught are conscious, whereas the great body of symbols that form true elitism are, by and large, unconscious.
Such symbols must serve a dual purpose: they must be at once par- ticularistic, serving to unite the group and maintain its unique identity, and universalistic, legitimizing it as an agency of power to the great majority of outsiders.
The continuing existence of the Creoles as a separate group was con- stantly threatened. Most Creole wealth rested on property ownership in and around Freetown, and rising property values created a strong temp- tation to sell to outsiders. In addition, a former power base in the civil service was eroded as educated provincials competed for these positions. Although Creoles comprised 64 percent of all professionals—dominating the judiciary, medicine, teaching, and the clergy—they had already lost the niche they once held in business. To counter these challenges, the once loosely knit Creole elite had to create more formalized institutions and more intensive means of communication, and to increasingly em- phasize ceremony and ritual.
Women always played a primary role in maintaining Creole separate- ness, mainly through the socialization of children in group symbols and values, and through the socialization of men in proper decorum. Equally important, women were the center of both family and kin networks (be- cause men were more preoccupied with careers and male clubs) and were thus the pillars of a Grand Cousinhood that formed the underlying struc- ture for the Creoles as a corporate group. This cousinhood involved dense networks of overlapping families, uniting each individual to many different families through participation in various ceremonials.
For men, Freemasonry provided an important means of group main- tenance and a system of interpersonal communication. Although Free-
POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 108
masonry was not limited to Creoles, they comprised the majority of the 17 Masonic Lodges in Freetown, and held most of the upper positions. Frequent ceremonies, often of a costly nature, formalized and cemented group relations, and an enforced system of brotherhood encouraged the amicable settlement of misunderstandings among individuals. Freema- sonry thus provided the setting for a group identity among men, and for individual face-to-face interaction.
All of these institutions not only served the particularistic ends of group maintenance, but also universalistic ends oriented toward the wider public. Women were involved in running a variety of associations, so- cieties, clubs, and activities that were either partially or wholly devoted to public welfare. The Freemasons were also involved in public works projects; but more importantly, the Masonic Brotherhood provided a set- ting for wheeling and dealing and exchange of information among men who were responsible, either directly or indirectly, for national policy decisions. Thus, the same sets of institutions and symbols that united the Creoles into a closed group legitimized them as spokespersons for the public good.
This was true also of the various ceremonies and rituals that emerged from the five cults of the Creoles: the cults of the dead, of the Church, of Freemasonry, of family, and of decorum. Funerals, thanksgiving rit- uals, Masonic initiations, balls, marriages, and other social events were carefully orchestrated dramas—tightly defined and intensely meaningful actions set apart from the aimless meandering of the normal flow of daily life. Through such drama, private experience, such as marriage or the death of a loved one, was elevated to collective experience. For partic- ipants, such dramas were intensely tangible and immediate, but at the same time they connected the individual and group with the timeless motifs of male and female union, victory and defeat, and life and death. At every point, then, the acted symbol united the immediate and the timeless, the individual and the collective, the parochial and the national, the selfish and the giving, and the private and the public.
Although it was Cohen who was most responsible for introducing the term action theory into political anthropology, it is debatable whether his symbolic approach should be so classified. He does not analyze individ- ual or even small-group action, except to provide examples for more general processes, and he is emphatic that individual decision making must not be unduly snatched from its cultural context to give an illusion of more freedom than really exists. On the other hand, it is perhaps Cohen more than any other person who broadened the scope of action
theory by clarifying the symbolic field within which individuals act and which provides both the constraints and the raw materials for those striv- ing for power.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Bailey, F. G. Stratagems and Spoils (New York: Schocken Books, 1969). Bai- ley’s theory (summarized in the foregoing chapter) provides one of the few systematic models in anthropology for analyzing political systems. One important aspect of the theory is the explicit differentiation between the ideal political system and the real political system.
Barth, Frederick. Political Leadership among the Swat Pathans (London: Athal- one Press, 1959). “In Swat, persons find their place in the political order through a series of choices.” This simple observation and his supporting analysis placed Barth in the forefront of the reaction against purely struc- tural studies that ignored individual decision making. As a result, this book and several journal articles on the Pathans of the Swat Valley in Afghanistan became the basis for Bailey’s political game theory. Cohen, Abner. Two-Dimensional Man (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1976). For Cohen, Man-the-Symbolist and Man-the-Politician are com- plementary and mutually reinforcing. In this work, Cohen presents his theory of the dialectical relationship between power and symbolism. The argument tends to become abstract; thus, it helps to read it in concert with one of Cohen’s excellent ethnographic studies, such as The Politics
of Elite Culture or Custom and Politics in Urban Africa.
Cohen, Abner. The Politics of Elite Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). Cohen is at his best when applying his concepts of power and symbolism to the analysis of a specific group. This book is one of very few studies of a power elite that is based on participant-observation fieldwork. Although the subjects are the Creoles of Sierra Leone, one feels that this could just as well be a study of a United States elite. Fogelson, Raymond D., and Richard N. Adams, eds. The Anthropology of Power
(New York: Academic Press, 1977). Power is defined in an extremely broad (and not always political) sense in order to provide a common thread to tie together these 26 ethnographic studies and four theoretical articles. Of the latter, Richard Adams’s evolutionary model of power is a significant contribution. One will also find excellent analyses of the concepts of mana in the South Pacific, Wakan among the Sioux, and shamanism among the Northwest Coast Indians.
Turner, Victor W. Schism and Continuity in an African Society (Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press, 1957). There are few books in po- litical anthropology that deserve the status of classic; this is one of them. In many ways, this minute examination of power struggles within a sin- gle village of the Ndembu of northern Rhodesia is reminiscent of Chinua
POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 110
Achebe’s famous novel Things Fall Apart; here also is found the tragic overreacher, barred from the status and power he so desperately desires. In spite of Turner’s scholarly presentation, Sandombu comes to life. The methodology is the case study or social drama, in which a few specific events are examined in detail.