| About the book
Since the envoys had brought news of the arrival of the Emperor, Bolesław’s kingdom had been overwhelmed by an all-encompassing state of commotion. Aside from the settlers living deep within the deepest forests, there was probably no one who did not, in some way or other, (...)
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8
The phones are always going wrong, so my parents aren’t upset when there’s no dialling tone. They’re at the fortieth birthday party of a female friend from their class at high school. They say they’re going downstairs to the phone booth for a (...)
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Roch SulimaAn Anthropology of the Commonplace
About the book
Events exist thanks to our presence within them, and as such provide the material for reports. The anthropologist of the commonplace has no need to conquer in order to make his report, as did Cortez, for example - in other words, to proceed as if the only aim of the conquest were to write an account of it (as Tzvetan Todorov has pointed out). The anthropologist of the commonplace makes "minor conquests" and reports on them, not so much to Your Royal Highnesses, as to himself. Operating as he is within real life, reporting becomes his way of life, from the anthropological point of view as good a way as any other. The anthropologist of the commonplace has business to see to at offices, ticket inspections on the tram, and neighbours, maybe a parrot or a car. In this way each one of us is an anthropologist of the commonplace, even if not everyone turns it into reports. A "minor conquest" would involve, for example, taking the most enormous, up-to-date dacha (the modern-day "paradise") and trying to perceive the element of hell in it; or trying to find a debate about existence in an encounter with the alcoholic community on the street. The anthropologist feels both "at home" and "away" within the commonplace, and is capable of being equally fascinated by the dramatic and the banal, of seeking artificiality in the obvious, of recognising the stuff of mythical epics as he reads the daily papers, and of never coming to a full stop in the face of any "certainty" in this world. "The simplest things are highly complex," says Nietzsche. The anthropologist must have the courage to be at variance wherever universal agreement is the order of the day; he must step into the turmoil of the inhuman concrete housing block or the street; he must get to the core of all those "obvious things" that actually have their origins within something that is quite unacceptable. Everyday life, the commonplace, which was here yesterday and will be here tomorrow and the day after, sets forth the criteria of an unmerited self-confidence. The anthropologist testifies against that self-confidence. For him, there is no division between the reality of the periphery and the reality of the centre, because our everyday life is simply wherever we happen to be.
(...)
IV.
The perception of an allotment from the outside, thus from a certain distance and with the reflection that accompanies this, makes it into a tool of "the present"; whereas for the allotment owner it is a place with a "sensory past", and is associated with the experience of putting down roots somewhere. The observer is able to "read" the allotment within the context of visual space, whereas it is almost impossible for him to "read" the other sorts of experience that run through the many other kinds of space. The world of the allotment can most surely be read from the structure of material carriers of significance, "objects" or "evidence" of agrarian activities, and thus from objectified versions of behaviour. Yet one must not ignore the need to reconstruct (if only hypothetically) likely scenarios of allotment "happiness", and also of allotment "woe", i.e. the mini-dramas of people from the gardening community. Let's not be naive - an allotment is not an enclave free of conflict, an oasis of peace, a place of oblivion or a refuge where we are born anew. At times it involves the arduous creation of just such a refuge - a self-defence establishment. So one cannot exclude the effect of constraint that, though covert, is yet strong enough to paralyse the individual: at the allotment I must drop my domestic troubles, I must relax, I must "forget myself" at work in the fresh air. Sometimes one's very awareness that the allotment has become the place where one casts off one's troubles and cares can be a cause of concern. In spite of what we say about the allotment as a refuge, one could define it as a place where one experiences the troubles of existence, because it is somewhere "outside the home", "outside the workplace", and thus it is a place where the "hard" but reliable dimensions of life undergo a softening. Here one experiences both the sacred ritual of putting down roots, but also the anxiety of "exile", of transience.
The expression of feeling that radiates forth has various addressees: a) the passer-by/"promenader"; b) the neighbour/allotment-owner; and c) oneself (auto-expression). All the addressees may be linked by one common characteristic. This is their ability to assume the role of bearer of a universal meaning of human activity that confirms the archetypal essence of construction (creation), and of the renewal of life: ploughing - sowing - crops/grain - seeds, etc. The expression of feeling in relation to the allotment is differentiated in a manner which I find palpable and legible by the first two kinds of addressee, because the passer-by/"promenader" is somebody else, just a spectator, and the neighbour or member of the allotment community is also somebody else. Immediate neighbourhood involves above all family structures. The neighbours, even on allotments, are predominantly families, and the whole tradition of neighbours or of families living adjacent to one another seems as though it were still alive, as does the associated rivalry regarding prestige and cooperation, as well as the proverbial boundary disputes. The neighbour-family structure gives the actuality of allotment gardens the hallmark of reality.
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
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There are more than 31,000 publishers registered in Poland. However, the market is highly concentrated. The 300 largest publishing firms still hold almost 98 per cent of it. More »
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