- A discussion of the relationship between text and context
Maria Clemensen.
Skriveøvelse, Temakursus: Contextualizing context. Ved Finn Sivert Nielsen.
Forår 2002. Københavns Universitet, Institut for Antropologi.
Introduction
A focus on text
Are there context free systems?
Context as an all encompassing system
Conclusion
Literature
Introduction
It is perhaps easy to agree in the social sciences that texts or objects should be studied in context, but exactly what the relationship is between text and context and what this relationship means for the outcome of the research is also important to discuss.
I have for my first few years of study been enrolled at Roskilde University Center, where the exam paper of each semester consists of a group project, wherein the group selects the subject. The project has to be within the area studied, but the parameters are broad enough so that the group can pick as their starting point an object of common interest. From here they decide what is necessary to study in relation to the object. The text is thereby put in context, but the focus is on the text.
When I came to continue my studies at Copenhagen University, I found that the exam papers were to be written with a quite different focus. Here the articles to be used in the papers are already included in the semester's course work. The students are to find the object to be studied within the parameters of the articles. The context is thereby centered around a text, but the focus is on the context.
In these two instances there is a different focus; one on text, the other on context. In both cases there is a lack in the result of the research if the full relationship of text and context is not taken into consideration. The researcher needs to be equally aware of the two because neither text nor context are given, but instead are a result of the researcher's choice, and therefor will have an impact on the interpretations and connections in the outcome. Roy Dilley writes that the frame as the context of a text should be as much a part of the studied object as what the frame contains (Dilley 1999:5). He also states that the act of contextualizing is to make connections and by implication, disconnections (Ibid:2).
Instead of looking at why things need to be studied in context it is important to look at what that context might be. I now wish to analyze the way context is used in three different articles in order to further discuss the implications of context.
A focus on text
In 'Underlying Frameworks of Organization' Fredrik Barth writes about territory, stratification and descent in what he describes as frameworks of organization. He finds that these to some extent determine the political choices of Swat Pathans, and it is exactly this political leadership that his monograph is about (Barth 1959). What Barth does at the beginning of his book is to put his studied object in a setting of three different contexts that he finds of importance for his research. He describes in detail territory, stratification and descent successively and their importance for the people of the Swat Pathans in their actions and ordering into groups and categories. It is interesting to see how the three are described one by one, as opposed to being described together. The reader does not necessarily question that these three frameworks are important for the political choices of Swat Pathans, but what Barth lacks is an explanation of how these three are picked and what implication this choice has on his research results. As Dilley was quoted in the introduction, these connections Barth makes entail disconnections with other possible context. Barth fails to interpret the frameworks themselves and altogether they come to resemble a given frame for the text, which is what Barth focuses on.
Are there context free systems?
In 'The Changing Context of Knowing', David P. Herbst writes about a scientific conference where different researchers took part in discussing the realms of context (Herbst 1988). Herbst addresses the question of context in an almost mathematical way, where he tries to decontextualize in order to explore if there is such a thing as a context free system. To examine this Herbst looks at language to see if some words have original meaning and we thereby can talk of context free language (Ibid). The advantage of this would be that one sign could equally be exchanged for another and the researcher could be objective and make generalizations. In mathematical science this is considered more scientific, but Herbst concludes that the context free language is actually a masking of a mono context language; in practice words have different meanings according to context (Ibid). Science might focus on decontextualization, but within the formulation of a problem there already lies the assumption of the solution, and what Herbst would rather address is these assumptions (Ibid:14). So we are back at Dilley describing the interconnectedness of connections and disconnections. Focusing on a presumed lack of context only conceals the fact that the researcher has made a choice in the way they present their data.
Context as an all encompassing system
In his article 'The Production of Locality', Arjun Appadurai sees the connection between text and context as an overall system (Appadurai 1995). Appadurai describes the relationship between locality and neighborhood, where locality represents a feeling of belonging and neighborhood the actual existing social forms wherein locality is realized (Ibid:204,207). Neighborhood is the frame of human action, but when the local subjects engage in social activities they also create context that might expand the frames of the neighborhood (Ibid:210). The production of locality is thereby context generating and the extent of this is a matter of social power (Ibid:211). This production of locality is an effect of abstract mechanisms and the contextualization that the local subjects are here participating in can be a product of rationalizing after an event has happened. This means that we often apply intentions to actions after they have taken place, we pick their context so to speak.
Time is also a factor here; the context of an action might change in numerous ways as time goes by. Since we have learned from Dilley that the frame and its content must be studied together, this means that our view of an action will also change in time.
Finally it is important to ask who has the power to give an action a certain context, be it a personal action, a political event or a theoretical text.
The way Appadurai sees these mechanisms as working in an overall system, we could ask if anything stands outside of context. According to Herbst nothing is context free, but this does not mean that one context is all consuming. As we just saw context can change in time, and different neighborhoods are contexts of different localities.
Conclusion
As we have seen with the different views from these three articles, the discussion of text and context is not an easy one to consider. There is no one way to use context. Context therefor can not be taken as a given that a researcher simply refers to, in order to back up his or her results. As Dilley explains, a certain context may be chosen because it has relevance to the object of interest, but the researcher must consider the impact of his or her choice of a certain context's relevance and of other's irrelevance (Dilley 1999:3).
Barth can easily be considered a product of his time. He is writing in 1959, and is attacking structural functionalism, which saw the three contexts he is using as text, and peoples actions as the given context. His motive therefor might simply be to change text and context around, but it is nonetheless interesting to see the way that only these three contexts are considered and the way in which they are used separately as three different systems.
Herbst shows us that we only reach a pseudo objectivity by thinking that we can peel off all layers of context. The contextualization is always there in research and in our interpretation of events and actions in our regular lives, and must therefor be taken into consideration.
As opposed to Barth Appadurai views the text-context relation as an all encompassing system and thereby tries to take in the whole world. It is perhaps valid to question if all events can fit into this locality/neighborhood system in practice but one important point Appadurai makes is the idea that we contextualize events after they have happened. In our interpretation of actions we generate layers of context and it is exactly this contextualization we must take into consideration when we view these actions.
What the researcher might then hope to do in this discussion is to put oneself in a position where one can switch back and forth between text and context and take both equally into view.
Literature
Appadurai, Arjun (1995): The Production of locality. In: Richard Fardon (ed.) Counterworks. Managing the Diversity of Knowledge, pp. 204-223. London and New York: Routledge.
Barth, Fredrik (1959): Underlying Frameworks of Organization. In: Political Leadership among Swat Pathans, pp. 13-30. London: Athlone.
Dilley, Roy (1999): Introduction: The Problem of Context. In: Roy Dilley (ed.) The Problem of Context, pp. 1-42. New York: Berghahn Books.
Herbst, David p. (1988): The Changing Context of Knowing. A Post-Høvringen Paper. Oslo: Work Research Institute.