SAMLING, SAMLERE OG JÆGER-SAMLERE: Primitiv erhvervskultur og civilisationens fix

Abstract

Collecting is about taking possession of the

world, an exercise in how to make it one’s

own, says James Clifford. He refers to the

accumulation of material objects and to the

collecting of exotic, curious, rare things that

museum curators, philatelists, and art-lovers

dedicate themselves to. Collecting, however,

is not merely a pastime of an affluent elite.

Comparative hunter-gatherer studies indicate

that gathering serves to create an

existential space of freedom – even in contexts

where gathering appears primarily a

subsistence activity. Gathering puts time and

the social at play. It supports an escape from

the workings of time and from the bonds of

social relations and institutions that persist

through time mediated by exchanges of

objects. The article considers the trajectories

of hunter-gatherer research and some of its

results. It also points to its recent calling

into question some of the fundamental

assumptions on which the research has

been based. Hunter-gatherer society, after

all, may not be as distinct from other types

of society as previously believed. This

allows recognition that cultural phenomena

previously considered distinct features

of hunter-gatherer society figure equally

in other types of society. Indeed, features

known as “immediate return” or “demand

sharing” and even “living in the present”

may be adaptive forms of exchange and

perception constituted at the interface of

different – complex and less complex – types

of social systems. These features then, are

not special forms of exchange and ideology

characteristic of hunter-gatherers seen as a

model of pristine human life in groups. They

are social strategies that sustain the survival

of marginalized groups in contemporary

societies. Indeed, “living in the present” and

exchange in the form of “immediate return”

or “sharing” helps encapsulated systems

at the margins successfully escape total

incorporation into surrounding, dominant,

systems. A case in point is that of the Pajonal

Ashéninka in the Peruvian Amazon where

gathering is a necessary supplement to

horticulture while simultaneously being considered

a leisure activity by the Ashéninka

themselves. From the point of view of the

capitalist economy, this capacity of the

Ashéninka to sustain themselves “from

nothing” is an advantage in that it allows their

being hired by local settlers for contract labor

at very low costs to the employer. Gathering

in this context helps the Ashéninka remain

a relatively autonomous – and marginalized

– indigenous group. At the same time, their

availability as cheap reserve labor sustains

a marginal form of capitalist production, in

this case cattle-ranching in the rain forest,

that threatens and gradually appropriates the

resources on which the Ashéninka depend.

Marginalized groups, be they Amazonian

Indians, London prostitutes, Hungarian

Gypsies, or Aegean Greek peasants may

be shown to exhibit similar features of

orientation to the present, a quasi-ritual space

outside of durational time. They all appear to

take a “natural” abundance for granted and

to forage for their subsistence. They develop

modes of life oriented towards the present

and see no need to store for the future. In

this way the structural insecurity that is part

and parcel of their marginalized condition

is transformed into an active focus on a

celebration of immediate consumption in the

present. The marginalized may experience

themselves as free and autonomous people

to whom freedom from material possessions

and disengagement from institutions that

organize long-term social reproduction is

an existential choice. The marginalized

position, and the particular form of identity

it allows, however, is peculiarly vulnerable

to appropriation by others. Despite the

appearance of an autonomous way of life, it

is hardly an independent social phenomenon.

Rather, it is a product as much as the object of

a dual process of incorporation and marginalization.

In the end, the really interesting

question concerns the role of an orientation

towards the present tied to specific behavior

in any type of society in particular limited

contexts, be they gathering for subsistence,

shopping for fun, scavenging, collecting

beautiful art, or gathering rare sightings

of birds as a leisure time devotion. These

forms of behavior are rarely experienced

as economic activity. Rather they are seen

as forms of pleasure and fun, modes of

taking possession of the world. They signal

freedom of choice – yet, an imagined freedom.

“Gathering” in whatever form it

takes always involves substance, material

items, that subsequently will be arranged,

distributed or consumed. As an act of

dealing with something that endures beyond

its experience by the practitioner, gathering

is a good place to unite loose objects, ends,

perceptions and research interests.