Reflections on Bhabha, Riley and Wikan

This literature review presents and reflects upon three texts with themes such as language, culture and identity – one of which (Riley 2007) has these three as its title. The other two texts are selected parts of Bhabha’s The Location of Culture from 1994 and Wikan’s Generous Betrayal from 2002.

Notions on culture, identity and language

The three authors all have different approaches to the themes. Riley, an ethnolinguist, points out that he is not a philosopher nor are his standpoints philosophic. Nevertheless, he makes an attempt to “tackle identity”, because, as he puts it; “it is there” (p. 2). The same seems to apply to Wikan, a Norwegian social anthropologist, who however focuses more deeply in the concept of culture. In comparison to the postcolonial theorist Bhabha’s more philosophical view Riley’s and Wikan’s texts offer a more steady point of departure for a brand new PhD student, which also explains the emphasis of my text below.

Riley presents a well-structured theoretical and historical background of the two intellectual traditions that function as the base of his mindset in Language, culture and society; sociology of knowledge and ethnolinguistics, a presentation that helps the reader to become conscious of the framework within which the ideas mentioned above are discussed. This pedagogic structure follows the reader through the entire book, giving it at times the characteristics of a handbook. Sociology of knowledge is described as a metadiscipline that examines the relationship between social structures and thought, or the social factors which condition what passes for knowledge in a given society (p. 3). Its roots lie in thoughts of Bacon, More, Montesquieu but also in the German hermeneutic and phenomenological tradition that was constructed by the likes of Hegel, Scheler, Marx, Durkheim and Simmel. The discipline itself was given its name by Karl Mannheim in 1936.

The other approach that lies at the bottom of Riley’s thinking is ethnolinguistics, a sort of field of linguistic anthropology, which focuses on examining the relationship between language and culture, communicative practices and cognitive models of language and thought. As Riley describes it, an ethnolinguist aims at describing and understanding the role language plays in shaping the ways in which the members of a group relate to others, themselves and the world. For him, these ways of knowing and being are tightly connected to the concept of identity (p. 11). Here Riley presents a small number of recent titles discussing identity, among them the work of John E. Joseph from 2004, which presents two claims that are connected with Riley’s approach and which I also find very interesting. The first of these is that the expression of identity is one of major functions of language, in addition to the “traditional ones”; representation and communication. The other is the wish to study language as a social phenomenon and identity as a process of construction of speakers and hearers (p. 12).

Chapter 2 in Riley’s book presents something he calls the social knowledge system, but which can more generally be interpreted as culture. The reader is introduced to the concept through a model of the system, the basic idea of which stems from the belief that it is knowledge that makes society possible and that any society can be described as a set of structures and functions for the management of its knowledge. In the model, three different units can be identified in an overlapping, double-circular figure. Of these the left side includes the creation/production, organization, storage, distribution, legitimation and use of knowledge and the right side acquisition of knowledge, cognitive categories, memory, social identity, eidos and praxis. In the midst of these is the social learning process, in which knowledge is acquired during intersubjective couplings or discourse (p. 30). When it comes to culture, an important conclusion Riley draws is that culture itself is knowledge as it doesn’t only include the traditions and the history of the group but also its common sense, beliefs, attitudes, values and language. He also presents three broad categories of cultural knowledge, the know-that, know-of and know-how, which together build and individual’s or a groups cultural competence (p. 40-41). Cultural knowledge is transmitted to the members of the group through interaction and discourse (p. 35), but it should also be noted that this interaction results in differentiated distribution of knowledge, which is offered as a valid explanation to why individuals within the same cultural sphere yet have different perceptions of the world and their culture.

Related to culture, the concept of race is also discussed by all three authors. Riley, for instance, puts forward arguments concerning what race is and what it is not and how both concepts of race and racism require that there is an underlying assumption of superiority (pp. 26-30). As for the relationship between race and culture, he concludes, it is important to understand that culture works autonomically towards race, as it attempts to understand humanity in terms of how and what is learnt, which as a concept is indeed far from an individual’s or a group’s biological inheritance. Bhabha, in his turn, discusses race and racism from a postcolonial point of view, and concludes e.g. that questions concerning the “origin of races” have provided justification of both cultural hierarchy and supremacy that the West long has claimed over the rest of the world (p. 353).

Wikan discusses the relation between culture and race from a slightly different point of view. One of the chapters in her book is titled Culture- a new concept of race? In the chapter, Wikan discusses what she calls the double misuse of the concept of culture, by “us” as we apply “culture” to the “others”, and by “them” (or the others) as they constantly invoke “culture” as an explanation or an excuse for their behavior (p. 81). The reflections are a part of her general discussion concerning the increasing immigration of non-westerners to Western Europe and the complications this has brought for societies – both practical and discursive. According to Wikan the concept of culture has become something that it was never meant to be, a holy cow that no one dares to touch, but that breeds impotence, intolerance and irresponsibility (p.83).

Racism is, according to Wikan, “to treat people condescendingly because of ethnic or biological attributes” (p. 81). Another part of racism is the double standard already described above; whereas our actions are seen as results of individual decision-making which has nothing or very little to do with our culture, the others are often perceived as products of their culture. Wikan argues, quite fairly, that this is impossible; individuals cannot be products of any culture as it is in the essence of the culture itself to be dynamic, forever changing and constantly reformed. The dynamics of culture, and antiracism for that matter, demand that the individual claiming to belong to a culture should be seen and be held responsible for his/her actions.

These and other issues, such as honor-related violence (see chapter 11), tradition vs. religion (see chapter 12), urban vs. rural traditions and gender issues are discussed by Wikan from various different points of view, with her standpoint being that the concept of culture has become filled with connotations that weren’t originally attached to it and that it has been connected with power – today maybe stronger than ever before. The main point of Wikan’s case can be summarized in the need to enhance the individuals’ rights and responsibilities vis-á-vis what often is called cultural behavior or just culture (p.85).

A few facts to remember about culture:

• Culture is a concept, not a thing; it can be filled with various contents
• Culture has no agency in itself – only humans have the power to act
• Culture has no power – beyond what people attribute to it
• Culture is subject to change; hence all cultural things change
• Culture covers up the complexity of human existence – our individualism and the fact that we are “children of our culture”

(after Wikan, pp. 87-88)

Apart from culture, which is at all times present in the examined texts, the concept of identity is discussed by all three authors. Riley’s strongest claim is for social identity and its connectedness to knowledge. To put it simply: we are what we know and our identities can only be treated with reference to others, since others are its principal source (p.86). This notion of identity being socially constructed is appealing to me, as my own life has previously led me to similar thoughts concerning my own identity and being a part of the global migration movement has only enhanced this feeling. However, the reasoning of an identity that is entirely social seems to leave me at times with more questions than answers.

On page 87, Riley presents a model of identity, which lies at the bottom of the rest of the book and is finally completed at the end in chapter 5, reconfiguring identities. The model can be described as a triangle with identity at the top corner, self at the left hand corner and person at the right hand corner. On the left side of the triangle is the person’s individual awareness and on the right side her social identity. In his final reasoning, Riley completes the model by changing identity to ethos, the communicative identity, and placing me, the individual’s perception of her social identity”, in the middle of the triangle (p. 214). The shaping and reshaping of an individual’s identity takes place in constant interaction with others. This interaction, both linguistically and socioculturally, is a focal point in Riley’s text. Communicative practices are described as culture-specific forms of language use which communicate identity by proclaiming membership of a group or a culture (p. 93).

Wikan discusses identity from a questioning, but also from a more practical point of view, making connections to e.g. Norwegian state policy. She also concludes that the vague and imprecise concept of identity often causes problems, both in politics and elsewhere, but makes an attempt to capture this, calling it a “person’s cherished idea of what and who he or she is, though this idea is moving, changing”. Her definition, though indistinct, has certain connections to both Bhabha and Riley as we have seen above.

In chapter 4 Riley presents the concept of stranger and the social categorization process that leads us to think in terms of “us” and “them/strangers”. In this chapter, several interesting theories are presented, among them Simmel’s and Schütz’s from early 20th century, which still influence the field. Examples of other concepts that are discussed are the nation-state as a sociopolitical structure and Andersson’s (1983) list of criteria that constitute ethnic/national groups (pp 184-187). Connected to issues of ethnicity and language, an interesting notion is raised by Haarman (1986, through Riley). The notion concerns the ethnopolitical variables in the field of sociology of language and is interesting to me from my own research’s point of view. These variables are about the forms and functions of the relationship between the ethnic group and the state, in my case the Sweden Finns and the Swedish state. As one of ethnopolitical variables Haarman points out the language’s reproduction potential and above all its status as a medium of instruction in schools (p. 188). Haarman’s framework, though a bit out-of-date, might prove to give new insights for my further research.