Mary Douglas has written brilliantly about Evans-Pritchard, placing his work within a larger theoretical debate (compare Gellner 1981:xv–xvi). Douglas writes, “One of the present crises in sociology comes from the criticisms of phenomenologists.
Maintaining that social understanding must start from the human experience of consciousness and reflection, they despair of truth in any so-called human science that ignores the distinctively human element” (1980:2).
Phenomenologists would dismiss theories proposed by White, Harris, and Radcliffe-Brown, for example, because their respective points of view argue that cultural life is knowable independently of the experience of its participants, holding that what informants think or perceive of reality is not necessarily the starting point for inquiry. Phenomenologists basically give explanatory priority to the informant’s subjective view.
Douglas continues, These critics have undermined confidence in the traditional methods and even in the traditional objectives of sociology. Consequently, many scholars sensitive to the criticism have been tempted to give up striving for objectivity and to shift their own writing into a mystical mode, indulgent to their own subjectivity. Others, who would still like to try for objective comparisons, find little alternative but to work on in the old framework of inquiry, and so tend to shirk these issues. In advance of this critical juncture Evans-Pritchard felt the dilemma keenly. (1980:2)
The dilemma is this: Where does culture exist other than in
the perceptions, beliefs, and actions of individuals? This is the
issue Sapir encountered when he read about the contrary Omaha, Two Crows (see pp. 93–94). How can we state, “The Nuer
believe X,” when we really need to list the opinions of each individual Nuer, as expressed at a particular time? And if culture
only exists with the individual, how can comparisons between
individuals—let alone between cultures—be made? And finally, and most problematically, how can an anthropologist’s
statement about another culture be anything more than her or
his individual perception of another individual’s expression, a
flimsy bridge of communication across a chasm of cultural difference?
As Douglas suggests, one response to the dilemma is to say
“The hell with it!” and focus on issues that do not require such
epistemological turmoil. Another approach is to retreat into a co-
coon of hypersubjectivity in which ethnography and autobiography are not distinguished.
Evans-Pritchard, Douglas suggests, attempted to find a way
through the dilemma:
He taught that the essential point for comparison is that at
which people meet misfortune. They may accuse others, they
may accept responsibility. They count different kinds of misfortune as needing explanation. As they work their ideas of
blame and compensation into their social institutions, they invoke existences and powers that are adapted to each particular
accounting system. There are ways of getting valid evidence
on these essential moral purposes as they surface from consciousness into action. (1980:3)
For example, how do we deal with misfortune in modern
America? We litigate. If we spill scalding coffee on ourselves, we
sue the restaurant that heated it. If we slip on ice and break a leg,
we sue the store that should have shoveled the sidewalk. In
American society, we appeal to the legal system to establish
responsibility—even over “accidents”—and to assess penalties.
An exploration of accountability in American society would
readily identify major themes of a cultural life.
Similarly, Evans-Pritchard followed the threads of accountability in his classic studies of the Azande. He wrote, “I suppose
that the simplest way of assessing an African people’s way of
looking at life is to ask to what they attribute misfortune, and for
the Azande the answer is witchcraft” (1967:11).