The End of Tradition, or the Tradition of Endings/ Nezar Alsayyad/ 2004

Alsayyad begins the essay by tracing the four threads of recent discourses on endings. The first is Daniel Bell's "The end of ideology". Bell argued that 19th century ideologies like Marxism were ending, and that a new utopia of social harmony cannot be brought about through ideological means. But this theory was proved false with the radicalism that arose in 1960's. The second is Fukuyama's 'End of history and the the last man' which argued that as western liberal democracy takes root and the sociocultural evolution of man will halt with liberal government becoming the final form of governing. But this was also wrong since liberal democracy has been constantly challenged by fundamentalism, radical movements, and authoritarianism. The third discourse was Ohmae's End of Nation state that argued that as the money that moves between nations are mostly private, there is no need for a nation-state involved. Fourth, Jacoby's 'End of Utopia' that argues with the wide spreading of free market capitalism there cannot be any radical changes and that utopia that brings about change is dead. Alsayyad argues that all these endings are a fallacy, and in the 21st century there exists real threats to liberal democracy, history, capitalism, and new ideologies still emerge.

On tradition: Alsayyad argues that tradition has to be seen as the process that creates contested subjectivities involved in producing/occupying spaces. First study of tradition in 1989: Tuan argued Tradition to be a constraint. Paul Oliver presented the concept of handing down traditions and Rapoport came up with a list of attributes to test the degree of trasitionality.

On built environment: How built traditional environments have to studies in response to changes in society? Glassie and Rapoport say architecture is material culture/cultural landscape and they reflect the norms of the society. Abu Lughod argues for breaking down of dichotomies and suggests the use of 'traditioning' as a verb in opposition of tradition as a noun (process over product). She argues that traditional environments should not be seen as endangered environments. Following this argument Alsayyad argues that deterritorialization of identity through globalization happens in 4 phases, Insular phase (indigenous vernacular) colonial (hybrid architecture) independent nation building (modernization), and globalization (settlements homogenized, and people are ethnically aware).

Alsayyad asks, if the end of tradition as an object of enquiry suggests an end of tradition as an objective reality? Answering his question negatively, he says the new modes of enquiry into tradition only suggests that tradition as a concept we have know thus far is ending, and not the end of tradition itself.

The book is divided into 3 parts:

Part 1 examines the dialectic nature of tradition and modernity. The three essays present new ways of looking at tradition through the lens of modernity.

Jane Jacobs: Tradition is (not) modern - Tradition and modernity are codependent but mutually exclusive. Tradition is imagined by modernity. Globalization has not killed tradition but rather reshaped it. Aboriginals in Australia hired architects to insert aboriginal identity into contemporary architecture of touristic buildings. Traditional authority was channeled through modes of modernity.
Ananya Roy: Nostalgias of the Modern: End of tradition is end of traditional ways of thinking. Consumption of tradition is production of tradition.
Dwelling: Authenticity- Recovering authenticity by creating nostalgia. (Crystal palace, Eifel Tower)
Performing: making explicit acts of consuming tradition. (Algiers)

Part 2: examines traditions as a process of invention. The three essays examine how traditions are "manufactured, packaged and deployed". An invented landscape inherently depeds upon succesful deployment of invented traditions. Since invented traditions are often messy and are competitive in what traditions they are excluding invented landscapes are usually a failure.

Part 3 examines tradition as a representation of a regime. It shows how tradition is programmed, policed, and deployed in hegemonic struggles that create both built environemnts and citizen subjects through its reworking of tradition.  Essays include Mia Fuller's examination of standardized farmhouses enforced by Italian fascist regimes to ensure that people thought of national identity before regional identity, and Dufang Lu's example of breaking and rebuilding city walls in China as a symbolic entity.

"What has ended is not tradition itself, but the idea of tradition as a harbinger of authenticity, and as a container of specific cultural meaning, as a place-based, temporally situated concept; as a static authoritative legacy; as a heritage owned by certain groups of people."

"Tradition is no longer found only in ‘real’ places; it lives on in the most fake of all places, where

it is reborn everyday in the social practice of those who inhabit what used to be the

space of fakery."

Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case/ Arjun Appadurai/ 1981

Appadurai presents a 200 year ethnohistory of a South Indian temple (Parthasarathy Temple in Triplicane, Madras). Following anthropologist Clifford Geertz theories on ethnography and social and cultural systems, Appadurai argues that "alterations in social structure, over time, interact dialectically with a fundamentally unaltered cultural system." He critiques that while several monographs have noted the economic, political, and cultural workings of the temple, these relations have not been analyzed or synthesized. Historians, he says, adopt a "loose-leaf" model where they juxtapose the workings of different parts of temple, but there has not been a study of the temple as a "south Indian institute" from "inside". Hence, his study, links the historical past of the temple with the ethnographic present.

The first chapter begins with the primary argument of the book that there has not been any cultural change in the temple in the last two centuries, while the social system of the temple has reasonably changed. During British rule and in the post independent years, the power residing in the temple has been complicated and authoritative relations have become fragmented in the temple. In short, while the deity in the temple is still accepted as the supreme  authoritative power, there are conflicts about how the power of this authority has to be managed in everyday affairs. He argues that the questions of power and authority is not limited to the domain of rule (the entire cosmos symbolized in a temple) but also extends to the process -- a redistributive process. He sees worship as a redistributive process, and analyses it with the terminologies of economic anthology -- reciprocity and redistribution. While gift-giving in expectation of reciprocity is one side of Hindu worship, he suggests, redistribution is the other. The deity (even its image, at that) is imagined to be "chief" who will give out justices and assume the redistributive role. In the material world this translates  to redistributing the gifts given by "donors"to the deity (food items are dispersed among public, a part  of the donation goes to priests etc.)

The second part of the first chapter discusses several complaints filed by priests and donors claiming their share in the ritual / distributive process of the temple. These citations, Appadurai writes, indicated the fragility in the consciousness of the priests about redistribution. While kings were traditionally seen as "protectors" of the temple, and had the obligation to mitigate conflicts and oversee the redistributive processes of the temple, with the arrival of the British, the conflict resolution became highly complicated. As the role of kings disappeared and the administration of the temple moved from dominant Brahmins (Thenkalai) to State government, the power structure of the temple changed from a hierarchical pyramid to a "complicated set of "honorable" shares in the divine polity of the deity." (61)

The second chapter discusses the role and authority the kings possessed in maintaining of the temple. Through several textual evidences and inscriptional readings, Appadurai suggests that the Parthasarathy temple was highly involved in royal participation and had organized sectarian involvement. Being under British jurisdiction for a century, he argues, resulted in sub-sectarian conflicts over power.

The third chapter, very interestingly, presents three key ways in which temple administration changed under British jurisdiction. First, since British merchants did not view the temples as necessary for their authority (unlike Kings), their interaction with brahmin priests stopped. Second, while kings stayed away from daily activities of the temple and would only involved themselves in resolving conflicts, British stayed away from conflict resolution and gradually got more involved in everyday temple activities. Three, unlike royal system which had both administrative and judicial branches under the same arm, British system often had contradictions involving the two. He examines two conflicts that resulted in prolonged interaction of the temple with the State. In both cases, the cause of the conflict was complicated by the involvement of the British instead of arbitrating amongst the conflicting parties (in the case where which sub-sect of Brahmins should recite prayers in the temple, British decided to cancel prayer recitation until the case was resolved) The revenue flow was centralized and the everyday activities of the temple were made more dependent on the British treasury. Until the British state was called in for arbitration, the temple had maintained much of its affairs. But by 1826, the temple was taken over by the British due to the "explosive nature" of the conflict, and inherent contradictions between the ideas of "protection" and "subordination" in English bureaucratic policy.

The fourth chapter examines the period between 1826 and 1848 where British gradually withdrew its power from temples after reaching the Zenith (in 1820's). Appadurai writes that this withdrawal of power gave rise to new sectarian politics, exacerbation of conflicts over temples, and changed prior notions of 'protection' and 'subordination' in English bureaucracy. After the British withdrew power and appointed trustees to manage the temple, there were several litigations from brahmins and non-brahmins on who should assume power and what compensations they should receive. At this time, the term 'Thenkalai' acquired local and constitutional connotations shedding its sectarian underpinnings.

The fifth chapter of the book discusses the interactions of these litigants with the British judicial system, and the appropriation of the British system to suit Indian purposes. "Because the activities of Hindu kings in respect to temples were "administrative" and not "legislative," and because their resolutions were context specific and not absorbed into a general body of evolving case law, it is no surprise that a "law of endowments" had not been developed." (169). The contrast between traditional way of conflict resolution and British judicial system of using codified law resulted in much more conflict than resolution.

In the final chapter, Appadurai uses this historical analysis of the past to understand the present day workings of the temple and its complex web of power relations. He argues that today the temple has remnants of pre-British King model, British secularization model, and the post-British judiciary model, along with an influence of the modern day political party (DMK party mandated that all prayers have to be recited in Tamil instead of age-old Sanskrit thus breaking the requirements to have Brahmin priests only). He frames the contemporary temple through Geertz's model of distinguishing between 'culture' and 'social structure', and argues that " the set of ideas and symbols that focus on the sovereign personality of the deity constitute the "cultural system" of the temple." and the questions of authority on who will control the temple constitute the "social structure". While the cultural system has remained the same in the last 200 years, the social structure has undergone important changes (220).

Cross question from readings: How would Partha Chatterjee respond to Appadurai's theory of British being called upon as arbitrators in temple disputes and the locals placing British officers in place of kings, as authorities in the redistributive processes of the temple? Chatterjee argues this to be the "spiritual realm" of the natives where they detested any interference from the colonizers. 

Disappearing Dichotomies: Firstworld - Thirdworld; Traditional - Modern/ Janet Abu-Lughod/ 1992

This paper permeates the dichotomous boundaries of Firstworld - Thirdworld, Tradition-Modern by delving into the making and meaning of these terms. Abu-Lughod argues that tradition is not a product but a process, and this process is the same in different parts of the world. She calls for a distinction in understanding 'traditional' and something newly created that is yet to be named. 

Abu-Lughod identifies three ways in which the dichotomies of Firstworld - Thirdworld narratives are breaking down in the social and economic spheres: First, with more 'developing' countries being classified as 'developed' (most famously Japan); Second, as the congruence between geographic location and the social formation fades, dichotomous terms like colonizers - colonized, east- west, north- south are rapidly becoming obsolete (Is Australia South and East?); Third, with the changing International Labor laws it is hard to classify a country let alone a region or a continent into one particular group. Lughod argues that these changes in the economic sphere are reflected in the built environment thus problematizing our understanding of what is 'traditional' and 'modern' architecture.

It was proposed in the early 20th century that the processes of urbanization, industrialization, and modernization could be the determining factors to divide the world two distinct groups. But these lines are increasingly getting blurred. New meanings are created for 'traditional' as the third world id adapting the practices of the first world. Traditional rugs made by an African tribe that depicts war tanks and bombs, Bedouin music tapes that bring together traditional Egyptian horse dance music with European pop tunes, and vernacular self-built houses around the world that are built using ubiquitous cement blocks are but a few examples. Abu-Lughod asks two questions to understand the agencies involved in preserving traditions: whose tradition do we preserve, and why are certain traditions favored over others. She contends that the criteria used to determine whose tradition has to be upheld can only be indeterminate because it eventually obtains a political narrative (ex: which layer of history should archeologists blast, and at which layer do they stop). Also, certain traditions or vernacular practices are favored by modern states simply because they can control and impose ways of life that fits with their ideology (ex: traditional Islamic quarters that segregates the sexes)

By calling upon John Turner's concept of 'traditioning' (verb as opposed to a noun) which says that attention has to be paid to the process through which 'tradition' is created and not the product (traditional) itself, Abu-Lughod proposes three identifying criteria to understand 'traditional’. One, in a traditional product there is a link between the maker and consumer, in that somebody unrelated to and with little empathy to the consumer does not produce the product for profit. Two, traditional things have symbolic meaning and emotional content which is shared by both makers and consumers. And three, traditioning is a collective process where houses/objects are collectively built, collectively interpreted and collectively consumed. 

With changing definitions of 'tradition' and the disappearing boundaries between first and third worlds, Abu-Lughod argues that there are commonalities in the ways 'traditioning' happens at both places. She takes examples from both first world (Harlem, NewYork) and third word (Cairo) where there was a need to creatively re-use old buildings that had symbolic and emotional value to the society. Both in Harlem and Cairo, she writes, the solution to renewing historic buildings that were abandoned in the city center was similar. Thus showing the disappearing dichotomies between the worlds.