los russos

i never thought i'd have much to gain from a slavic studies masters thesis.

on friday i attended a talk on the similarities between Pushkin's and Brodsky's nationalistic ideas. My knowledge of the two writers' works, millieus, and politics is practically nonexistant, so i will forego a thorough discussion of the content of the talk, and move on almost directly to how it relates to anthropology.

basically, whether one thinks it is hypocrisy or ambivalence, both writers felt a need to defend their nation (or nation-state, or country) when outsiders criticized it, but were quite critical of it to a personal or domestic audience. this is all closely connected, of course, to ideas about the "East" and the "West," but i would not be one to reiterate how.

so on to anthropology...I think this intersects quite nicely with discussion about cultural relativism and "native" anthropology. though total relativism is about as plausible as total objectivity, there is still a lingering sense (and I'd argue rightfully so), that it is not the anthropologist's place to waltz into some foreign/unknown place and start judging the actions and ideas of those surroundings. However, when the "object" of "study" is the anthropologist's own "culture" this is perhaps more acceptable. Especially, perhaps, when "studying up." What this means then, without going into explicit details and examples of this phenomenon, is that we too hold this double standard. While Brodsky and Pushkin choose, or are emotionally motivated to chastise or correct foreigners for criticizing Russia, anthropologists, at least those of the contemporary, AAA code of ethics-approved, still abiding by the Boasian tradition sort, self-censor criticisms of the foreign. Of course in some senses there is the implicit idea that it should not be censoring, but that a well-trained anthropologist should not even have those reactions to begin with (but that another issue entirely).

But I think these ideas relate to non-academic life as well. I've mentioned in a number of contexts my strangely differing feelings of place and home depending upon my context. I'll summarize quickly: When I am in a city on the East Coast (and similarly, though not as viamently in the Midwest), i will defend to the end my Midwestern small-town upbringing. Indeed, I identify as a diasporic rural girl, masquerading as some sort of pseudo-academic East Coaster who really couldn't leave my country-music loving, corn planting, karoke singing, state fair-attending true self behind. While at the same time, when spending time in heytown, i feel illigitimate. I complained about the line dancing and country music. I scoffed at the tractors, and even the Shivy 4x4s (that's a phoenetic spelling, thar). I had academic parents, and lived in town. I never even detassled. And I didn't stick around. I've run off and only come back twice a year. And when I talk to my former classmates, our lives are totally detached and unrelatable to each other. I'm a total fraud.

And I think what the Brodsky paper pointed out is not that these two things are incompatible. But that these dualities exist for most people about one thing or another. Our relationships to our homes (however that is defined) are as imagined as our ideas of community. And thus, those relationships are not stable but contextually contingent, and shifting. So I argue its neither hypocracy nor ambivalence. Its simply a matter of adapting to one's environment.