Subverting Emic and Etic Perspectives in a Commodified and Central Cultural Apparatus.
On Cultural Exchange and Global Markets.
Division and bipolarity are not new to humanity. In the twentieth century only, we have experienced various forms, such as axis and allies, democracy and communism, east and west and Pictorialism and formalism. Today, these divisions seem to have vanished, as if the line that separated these diverse but recurrent opposites has been blurred by globalization and cultural migration. But to what extent have these divisions been obscured? This essay attempts to analyze the current situation of the cultural apparatus in the global context. To start with, we need to understand the world in terms of Centre and Periphery.
Cultural centers such as London, New York, Copenhagen and Berlin are usually referred to as cosmopolitan and multicultural. Between these two terms there is a very small difference yet very important. Two differences can be distinguished here: the first one relates merely to people from different territories, the second, to alien cultures and ethnic groups integrated within a society. I would like to leave ethnicity aside, and take the term culture and society for the purpose of this essay.
Let’s take London as a case study. In this city we find various cultures.
But can we say London is multicultural, merely cosmopolitan or both? If we were to make a culture-geographical map of London, following the line of the psycho-geographical maps that the Situationists constructed, we could clearly map different territories for different cultures in the city. The most evident differences could be drawn in the periphery. In the center, we would find a multicultural pastiche or hybridization, closer to what is considered as English culture. The main cultural institutions are found in the center, and cultural flow occurs from center –where the dominating cultural institutions are found- to the periphery. We can see cultural influence from the center in the periphery, and an adaption of the central ideas of culture. The center in turn, allows cultural difference of the periphery, but expects the periphery to adopt the center’s socio-cultural ways. This is a condition to exist within society and also have access to the center. The peripheral cultures are manifested in the center as well, but this manifestation occurs only in an academic level and through political interests.
In an analogy to the global village, this example comes as close as no other; the difference being, that the periphery remains territorially independent – although never culturally independent. Still, cultural flow happens from center to periphery and in order for the periphery to be taken as a form of culture, there must be an adoption of central ideals of culture. Otherwise, the periphery runs the risk of being considered as a lower form of culture, or even as an enemy of hegemonic culture.
This problem of cultural flow manifests in the periphery. In a way, it does the opposite in the center: it helps it’s citizens in accepting their hegemony in the world, allowing an easier understanding of the peripheral world, and reinforcing the idea that “they are not so different after all”.
In the case of Latin America, this unidirectional cultural flow has interrupted the process of cultural identity formation that has been going on for only two hundred years.
When it comes to art production (and re-production) in the periphery, “as with any colonizing process, the cultural pressure from the hegemonic centre creates problems for those living and working on the periphery” (Luis Camnitzer, 1995, p.155). Not only does the center impose what is called mainstream art, but also the periphery cannot access this mainstream for various reasons. A simple one is funding, this plays part in the quality of the art produced in Latin America, and in most cases artists in the periphery are not able to afford shipping of their work to the center for the inclusion in fairs and markets. Another reason is the availability and affordance of materials. Camnitzer also argues that the successful penetration of the hegemonic concepts of quality in art, might be because of the poor and handcraft quality of Latin American art, and if the values displaced are obsolete. Although it’s true that many values in Latin America are obsolete, as they have derived from times of colony, Camnitzer makes a valuable observation:
“The argument neglects a simple fact. New York values, or international art market values, are derived from an infrastructure that can afford them. Or, when they are derived, it is assumed that this infrastructure can afford them.” (Camnitzer, 1995, p.156)
What Camnitzer argues, is one of the reasons for “brain drain”, which refers to the increasing amount of photographers, artists, scientists, economists, and other professionals educated in Latin America, who leave the periphery in order to achieve their goals in the center because of the impossibility of doing so at home. When it comes to art professionals, there is a limit to the penetration the artist might achieve in the mainstream art world. In the center they will be denominated “Hispanic Artists” which is a term that derives, not from the Hispanic world, but from the western world to categorize artists “who have some connection with Latin America.” (Luis Camnitzer, 1995, p.161). This designation, Camnitzer explains, posits a distance between these artists and the mainstream.
It isn’t only the artists and cultural producers who play an important role in the production (or re-production) of culture in Latin America. Cultural institutions, which are market driven, are of equal or greater importance. Those who consume culture from these institutions in Latin American groups of people who have one foot in the periphery and one in the centre; to acknowledge the status of peripheral art as equal as mainstream art would be, in some cases, to lower themselves to a populist and mass driven lower form of culture. This problem has another side to it: Whom can this artist address? On the one side, there is no one to supply valuable feedback, as the audience is not culturally fit for his work, on the other side, he is not culturally fit for his audience. This is a problem that stems from the market driven commoditization of culture and art, and the global division of labor, where the periphery’s role is to supply raw materials to the center, and the centers role is to design and produce commodities for the periphery [1]. Ulf Hannerz (1991) argues that when looking at “peripheral societies generally, one can see that the variety of forms of life are drawn into the world system in somewhat different ways, as the local division of labor is entangled with the international division of labor.” (Hannerz, 1991, p.114)
Idealist Thoughts.
In the seminar, I argued in favor of Emic and Etic perspectives[2] when approaching the study of peripheral visual cultures. Unfortunately, with extended research, I have come to realize that these concepts are merely idealist ones in a context of contemporary capitalist, market driven, bubble economy, and globalized, production of culture and meaning. At first, the idea to apply emic and etic perspectives came to me as a salvation for all the great culture and art being produced in the periphery but kept there under the status of craft or second hand art. Although I still believe that in the study of culture and identity from center to periphery these concepts are of great significance to comprehend the local meaning, when it comes to reality and to the success of these works and their producers, the market is to strong to be bypassed. The understanding of art from within the context in which it’s being produced is not enough for it to become meaningful in the center. It can only remain meaningful in the periphery, although the meaning that it can attain without an appropriate audience is close to null.
I would now like to take South American Nudes, the work of Marcos Zimmermann, an Argentine photographer working in Argentina, approaching Latin American identity through his work. This is an example of the artist who is trying to address local issues, while trying to access the mainstream by incorporating central ideas of Latin American culture:
Following the tradition of the academic emphasis on the nude of Latin American art institutions, Marcos Zimmermann has created a body of work that talks to us about the identity of Latin America. An identity shaped by
colonialism and mestizaje (the cultural blend between Spanish colonizers and natives), and the legacy of European immigration during and before the 20th century.
Untitled, Marcos Zimmermann
However, I find these images distant. Although borderline cliché, the stereotypes depicted in these images are very real, and yes, they conform to the notion of what can be identified as the Latin American man, part of it at least. With the nudity there is a distance created between the subject photographed and the viewer, which talks not about Latin American identity, but about European and North American ideals of the identity of the Hispanic man or “Latino” stereotype. I find this a sarcastic approach that contextualizes Latin America in the world as a kind of cliché that has been attributed from the center and has not sprung from within. I believe this is not the aim of Zimmermann with these images, but it conveys the distance and separation within Latin American societies, and the immigration and colonial legacy that have long kept the cultural divisions so far apart, here portrayed through the distance between the photographer and his subjects. Zimmermann takes the position of the late 19th century explorer, documenting the “natives” of far away continents.
In his website, the artist makes a short statement for this work:
“All the men photographed here are but one man. A man repeated a thousand-fold across South America. These photographs are a testimony and a portrait of the different faces of this Southamerican man, of his environment and of his way of life.”
There is certainly more to the environment and way of life of the Latin American man than the clichés here depicted for the amusement of a higher cultural and economic class.
This here is a perfect example of an artist caught between two worlds. On the one hand there is the attempt to create work for the local audience, which will hopefully address issues of identity and aid in the formation of a Latin American identity, which has come to a standstill by the neo-colonialist actions of the center. On the other hand, there is the need to appeal to an external audience, and this is done by reaffirming central ideals of the Latin American man, which in turn, is an identity created by neo-colonialism.
There is a clearly visible resemblance of the South American Nudes with early colonial photography that contributed to a strengthening of European identity by separating the center as a higher form of culture and civilization from the others. In attempting to create (or record) the identity of South America, this artist has subverted the meaning of images in a global context, as well as the history of photography and colonization, an action clearly not intentional, but naïve. On this subject Camnitzer explains that the artists located in the periphery are “the product of an adopted or an imposed culture, rather than a contributor to a culture in action” and “the result is an aesthetic that long pre-dates postmodernism (…).” (Camnitzer, 1991, p.156)
As I mentioned before, there is also the case of the migratory artist. Seba Kurtis is an example of an artist from the periphery working in the center, dealing with issues of the minorities, but still appealing to the mainstream.
Underlying his work are themes of illegal immigration. Whether in the border between Mexico and the US, or in Europe, Kurtis takes a personal and close approach to illegal immigration, resonating his own experience on subject.
The intentional tampering of his photographs, which serve as documents, sometimes goes as far as erasing the faces of the people in them, is an analogy for the situation of illegal immigrants that he portrays. In his work Drowned particularly, he has submerged the photographs in the waters that the immigrants coming from Africa cross to arrive in the Canary Islands. He explains:
Tanta, Seba Kurtis
“Tens of thousands of Africans have reached the Canary Islands in recent years, thousands more are believed to have drowned or died of thirst of exposure in the attempt.
I drowned the boxes with the sheets of film off the shores of the same ocean that they crossed.
The images represented are those which survived.” (Drowned, Seba Kurtis)
In a very smart move, Kurtis achieves an appeal both to the periphery and the mainstream; he doesn’t seek detachment from his cultural background in order to blend in the centre, but finds a way of dealing with it in his immediate surroundings. Because of his new experiences within the center and an acquired “tasteful” eye, he achieves the visual, almost surgical aesthetic of contemporary hegemonic art, and establishes a balance between centre and periphery, current experience and memory.
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[1] The production of commodities seems to be rapidly shifting to peripheral states with an increasing rate of industralization. Perhaps these countries are entering modernity and eventually post-modernity, and will soon be considered as central hegemonies. This itself is an argument to be analyzed independently.
[2] See p.34 Harris, Marvin. Emics, Etics and Objectivity. Also McEvilley, Thomas. Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief (1984).
This essay is intellectual property of Tomas Hein and may not be reproduced without written consent.
Subverting Emic and Etic Perspectives in a Commodified and Central Cultural Apparatus. by Tomas A. Hein is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
I really enjoyed that, most thought provoking. Do you have any recommneded further reading?
Thanks Darren, here is a small list.
Also have a look at an essay by Mari Carmen Ramirez titled “Brokering Identities: Art curators and the politics of cultural representation” .. it’s in “Thinking About Exhibitions”
Baddeley, Oriana and Fraser, Valerie (1989). Drawing The Line: Art and Cultural Identity in Contemporary Latin America. UK & USA: Verso.
Berry, John W., (1992). Cross-cultural psychology: research and applications, UK: Cambridge University Press. Available from: Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=FR2v8lfRT9IC&lpg=PA233&ots=6KErK2X02N&dq=emic%20etics&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q=emic%20etics&f=false [Accessed 6 November 2009]
Camnitzer, Luis (1991). Wonderbread and Spanglish Art. In: Mosquera, Gerardo, (ed.), (1995). Beyond The Fantastic. London: Institute of International Visual Arts.
Franklin, Karl J., (2009). Etic and Emic Stories [online], GIAL. Available from: http://www.gial.edu/GIALens/vol3-2/Franklin-Etic-Emic-Stories.pdf [Accessed 10 November 2009]
Hannerz, Ulf (1991). Scenarios for Peripheral Cultures. In: King, Anthony D. (ed.). Culture, Globalization and the World-System. London: Macmillan Press LTD.
Harris, Marvin, (2001). Cultural materialism: the struggle for a science of culture, USA: Altamira Press. Available from: Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=8Xc9DMbB5KQC&lpg=PA35&dq=emic%20etics&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=phonemics&f=false [Accessed 5 November 2009]
Kurtis, Seba. A Few Days More. [online images] Available from: [Accessed 5 December 2009]
McEvilley, Thomas. Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief (1984). In: Flam, Jack D., Deutch, Miriam, Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art (2003). USA: University of California Press. Available from: Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=JZabZ5hOfqgC&lpg=PA335&ots=MYwDiCTSIh&dq=Thomas%20McEvilley%20doctor%20lawyer%20indian%20chief&pg=PR5#v=onepage&q=emic%20etic&f=false [Accessed 5 November 2009]
Mosquera, Gerardo (ed.), (1995). Beyond The Fantastic. London: Institute of International Visual Arts.
Zimmermann, Marcos. Untitled. [online image] Available from: [Accessed 5 December 2009]