interview paper

Interpreting Life Histories

An Anthropological Inquiry

Lawrence C. Watson

Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke

Rutgers University Press

New Brunswick, New Jersey

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Watson , Lawrence Craig , 1936-

Interpreting life histories.

Bibliography: p.

Includes index .

l . Ethnology-Biographical methods.

2. Personality and culture. I. Watson-Franke,

Maria-Barbara , l938-

GN346.6.W37 1985

ISBN 0-8135-1090-2

. II. Title .

920'.001'8 84-22332

Copyright © 1985 by Rutgers, The State Univers ity

All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

The dialectic of experience has its own fulfillment not in definitive knowledge, but in that openness to experience that is encouraged by experience itself.

Hans- Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method

Contents

Preface

1. Life History Research in Anthropology

2. The Life History As a Subjective Document

3. The Subjective World of a Life History

4. The Study of Personality

5. The Study of the Individual-Culture Relationship

6. Women's Life Histories

7. Prospects and Conclusions

Bibliography

Index

ix

1

30

58

98

135

161

185

207

223

~-)

The Circumstances of Data Gathering

Because of the intensely subjective (as opposed to objective, imper- sonal) nature of the life history, it is important to identify the specific and immediate conditions under which it was written or related that influenced its meaning for the subject and for the person who elicited

Lit as discourse and recorded it. As we have seen, this theme has just recently been taken up by anthropologists working in the life history field. In no true sense can the life history be divorced from the subjec- tive mental sets or orientations that produced it in the encounter, for it is through those meanings that it is mediated to us in textual form and poses its special interpretive challenges.

I . Since interpretation is frequently what we are concerned with in ap- proaching the life history, we must know somethmg about the context in which the text was evoked before we can begin to make any sense

Life History Research in Anthropology 17

of it. This fundamental consideration, it seems to us, is always an es- sential aspect of all life history research , but until recently it had often been neglected. ~o often, the relationship of the final life history'l product to the subject himself, to the social context in which the sub- 1 ject wrote or related it, and/or to the investigator, recorder, or catalys whose operations have helped bring it into being is not in the least biJ clear. Yet we must take all these factors into consideration in life his tory research, if we are in a position to do so , for obviously all of them in their various ways have played a part in determining the even- tual form of the finished product, that is , the life history as it appears to us as text. /

The anthropologist who wishes to make sense out of the life history- data he himself has collected in the field is in a special position for he has elicited the material from a native informant with whom he has en- tered into some kind of face-to-face relationship. Since the informant is often illiterate , he must talk directly to the anthropologist about himself over a more or less extended period of time. This human en- counter structures what is related , and so the anthropologist, in order to interpret his own data , must find out something about the dynamics of the situation, including the motivations , understandings , defenses , and situational constraints that influenced the data-collecting setting , the results , and the very process of interpretation itself.

If the reader, the potential analyst of the life history, is removed from all immediate control over the situation , it is helpful for him to have some information from the original investigator about the origi- nal context out of which the life history emerged . If such information is provided (and it is often not) it is usually found in the preface , anal- ) ysis, or annotations that accompany the life history . We have tried to delineate some of the critical questions that should be answered, theo- retically , before an interpretation of the life history is attempted .

1. How well did the investigator know the subject and what wa s their relationship? Ideally, the circumstances of their relationship should be spelled out in as much detail and depth as possible , includ- ing the development of the relationship over time , the present social context in which the relationship is embedded, and the emotional dy- / namics of the relationship at the time the data were being recorded. The anthropologist , let us not forget , is involved in the data-gathering situation no less than his informant. He occupies no privileged posi- tion , even though he may think his scientific status as an "objective" observer exempts him from any necessity for self-appraisal. We

18 Interpreting Life Histories

should keep in mind that he is the one doing the interpreting and mak- ing sense of the situation in his full individuality .

The informant orients his account to the anthropologist as another person with a particular set of perceived characteristics . Understanding the nature of the relationship makes clear what meaning it had in per- sonal and interpersonal terms , thus giving us an idea of the motivating human circumstances of the life history.

2. What were the circumstances in which the subject related his life history? What was the form in which it was recorded? Did he write it alone? Did he dictate it to the ethnographer? If so, where and how did this happen ? Knowing what the subject had to contend with in his im- mediate environment when he recalled his life would have a great deal

lJ_o do, we suspect , with what was recalled and what was modified or suppressed . The original situation could have been conducive to open- ness or it could have been stressful and threatening. And whether it was one or the other, or something different , would of course depend on how cultural factors and definitions entered into the data-collecting situation . We noticed in our fieldwork, for example , that Guajiro chil- dren would not volunteer much personal data in the presence of adults , although they would do so when they were alone. This situation can be interpreted as a response conditioned by the child's attitude of fear and respect toward adults , who are perceived as harsh, demanding , and critical in this culture .

3. What inducements , persuasions , arguments , and reasons did the ethnographer use to motivate the subject to relate his life ? An investi- gator's honest assessment helps to clarify the reasons why the inform- ant is doing what he is doing. These reasons, in turn, may shed some light on the meaning of the informant's statements about his life in the context of his relationship to the ethnographer. It is also helpful when the investigator can indi cate the impact of his inducements on the psy- chology of the informant. Presumably his knowledge of native charac- ter in general and his understanding of the specific informant would enable him to do this. ~ 4. What , if anything , did the subject have to say about the data-col-

lecting situation and its requirements , and in what way did he think it influenced his recollection of his life ? Sometimes such observations are volunteered freely by the informant ; sometimes the investigator elicits them. In any case , this valuable source of insight into the native view of the situation is all too often neglected. Obviously , uncon- scious factors in the subject's motivations would have to be inferred.

Life History Research in Anthropology 19

5 . What were the investigator's own preconceptions about the cul- ture , the subject, and the data-collecting situation , and what self-per- ceived theoretical commitments did he have that might have influ- enced how he collected , arranged , and interpreted the material? Since social scientists usually do not discus s their biases , we are left with lit- tle insight into their activity as analysts or interpreters. We can only guess the specific ways in which they influenced the form , content, and meaning of the life history.

6. To what extent were questions used to elicit autobiographical data? What particular questions were used? How did the use of certain quest.ions influence specific aspects of the recollected life history? It is // important to know what material was volunteered and what material was given under questioning or extraordinary inducements. A piece of autobiographical data means quite a special thing when it is recalled spontaneously , repeated , and elaborated . It says something about what that person values and the way he naturally thinks of himself and his life . When an item is a response to a question , it is oriented to a set of external expectations, and the problems of maintaining interpersonal adequacy or winning friendship or approval are likely to be impor- tant considerations.

The frequent failure of the anthropologist to mention the questions he asked to elicit and direct the flow of the life history is at first glance puzzling , but is really quite understandable. In the field we are acutely aware of how important questions are in obtaining information. We think in terms of right and wrong questions, good and bad questions. But once we return from the field with reams of field notes and all the "important" questions answered , the sheer bulk of the data seizes us in its forceful immediacy , and we turn to problems of organizing it and putting it to the test of our theories. In the process the importance of the questions that got us the data recedes into the background. Yet these questions still retain a crucial significance ; only when we under- stand them can we properly identify the meaning of the data-collecting setting for the informant as well as for the ethnographer.

7. To what extent was a native interpreter used to translate the life history from the original recitation , and what was his role in the pro- cess of data gathering? If the life history was recorded verbatim by the anthropologist, without a translator , what language was used and what facility did the informant and/or recorder have in it? The one who re- engages the life history must be aware of the distorting effects of the translation process: not only may meanings be changed as a result , but

20 Interpreting Life Histories

a native interpreter fundamentally changes the social stimulus situation for the informant, and adds the distorting effects of his own personal- ity, interests, and attitudes to the act of translating what the informant says. The role of the translator in DuBois's (1944) collection of Alor- ese life histories is a case in point.

( 8. What techniques were used to record the life history? The com- pleteness of the life history may ultimately rest on whether the investi- gator tape-recorded everything and could go back to the original data, or whether he used an effective shorthand, tried to record it longhand, or simply wrote down later in the day what he recalled from memory, if, let us say, the subject objected to having his life history recorded directly. Moreover, the mode of data collecting may influence the meaning of the situation from the subject's standpoint.

r 9. To what extent, if at all, has the original Life history material, as , I dictated or written ·down, been edited in the final presentation as text?

What has been eliminated from the native informant's original ac- count? To what degree has the recorder and/or editor rearranged the life history to conform to a logical chronological sequence? These questions focus attention on the issue of whether or not the original chains of thinking and conceptions of chronology have been retained. There is a difference between native categories, standards, and thought processes, which may seem incomprehensible or illogical to us, and the anthropologist's notions of how the data ought to be ordered for scientific or aesthetic purposes.

Even in a life history as excellent as Sun Chief, Simmons (1942) tells us that he eliminated two-thirds of the original material because it was "repetitious" and rearranged the material into a more orderly chronological sequence to enhance readability. We do not, however, know precisely what was eliminated or the standards Simmons used to make these decisions. If we had all the original material and some idea of its original order, we might find that the life history had an entirely different flavor.

Unfortunately, meaningful answers to the various questions we have posed here are rarely provided, and thus we are deprived of potential sources of insight and understanding, which, if available, would enable us more easily and effectively to determine the meaning of the life history in its finished textual form as it has moved through different contexts of "becoming" what it is. Without this knowl- edge we have little or no way of knowing, for example, what the sub- ject had in mind when he related his life and what went on in the

Life History Research in Anthropology 21

mind of the anthropologist at the various stages of data gathering and interpretation.

It is clear that the final, published text of any life history we wish to interpret takes on a complex set of meanings in the process of its con- struction that defines its meaning as text. These meanings have come into being as part of a long sequence of explicit and implicit nego- tiations between and among the parties to the life history endeavor (Crapanzano 1977, 1980; Frank 1979). If we want to understand what the text is all about, we must include as part of our interpretive efforts the goal of reconstructing, as much as we can, the constructive pro- cess itself. This reconstructing, of course, must also include the self- construction of the anthropologist through the text, as he projects an image of himself for the benefit of the particular audience he is ad- dressing in his work.

Interpreting and Understanding the Life History

Upon the scaffolding of our understanding of the anthropological life history as discourse translated interpretively into text, we must now consider our own interpretive reencounter with the "finished" product: the written or published document itself.

As we shall attempt to demonstrate in detail in later chapters, inter- pretation is a subjective activity, subsuming many complex opera- tions, which requires the interpreter to bridge the gap that separates him and the context of his thought from the object of interpretation, in this case, the life history text. In the view of hermeneutics, the inter] preter must be willing to broaden and modify his own taken-for- P ~ranted .pre~nderstandings as he enters into a dialogue with another~s · life, which IS embedded m Its own (but for us, foreign) meaning-hori- zon. Through a dialectic in which we pose questions appropriate to the I meaning-context of the world of the life history, we receive back an- swers that raise new questions, allowing us to correct the direction of interpretation. This dialectic initiates an open and unfettered dialogue that eventuates in some merging of our context of thought with that of the text in question. This dialectically produced synthesis or integra- tion defines "understanding" in the hermeneutical sense.

Understanding is obviously limited if the one who interprets an ob~ ject in a context far removed from himself doe~ so str~ctly within his /,/ own frame of reference; on the other hand, It IS Impossible completely l

22 Interpreting Life Histories

to leave one's own familiar horizon and enter into another world en- ' tirely on its own terms. The would-be interpreter can never fully elim- inate his own biases even if he is aware of and reflective about some of his own starting points . The very language a person uses , for in- stance, provides a ready-made description of the world; he cannot thoroughly foresee and understand its effects on his thinking.

In life history research the interpreter's ordering and making sense of the life history are considered meaningless or unimportant. It is as though the events described and the conclusions to be drawn from them were self-evident empirical realities or objective modes of thought having no connection to the intentions, hidden meanings, and values of the people involved in the whole enterprise. It is important for us to be self-reflective about our own interpretive activity, there- fore, in order to clarify how " meaning" is mediated precisely . through our own particular dialectical engagement with the thing we are trying to understand.

We shall take up some of the problems raised by hermeneutics in regard to interpretations in the next chapters , and we shall return to them in our critique of various interpretive strategies in life his- tory research.

Basic Approaches to Studying the Life History

JPhenomenological and existential hermeneutics provide a challenge / ~nd a much needed alternative to the limited understanding of the in-

formant's subjective world that other interpretive approaches offer. The two most important of these other strategies that we shall consider are (I) the study of personality, both structural and developmental, primarily through psychoanalytic theory, and (2) the study of the indi- vidual-culture/society relationship from structural-functional perspec- tives. We shall touch only briefly on the main issues at this time, leav- ing the remainder of the essay to develop them more fully.

The Study of Personality

The life history has not infrequently been used to study or test theories about individual or group personality and aspects of personality func- tioning. The life history, from this perspective , is believed to shed

Life History Research in Anthropology 23

light on or reveal certain aspects of the person's intrapsychic structure through his self-reported behavior, provided that the interpreter has the theory and the correct tools of analysis at his disposal.

The study of personality is one variant of eric-nomothetic inquiry. In the etic-nomothetic approach a phenomenon is understood in terms of an external set of standards or categories used by the investigator to make sense of it (Berry 1969; Price-Williams 1974, 1975). Further- more, these categories take their meanings from models or general sets of theoretical propositions designed to explain or elucidate recurrent relationships and causes existing between classes of events (All- port 1942).

Ultimately, the theories used to evaluate life history data for the purpose of explaining personality are themselves derived from deep- lying assumptions that we must understand . These assumptions belong to our life world (Lebenswelt), an idea suggested by the phenomenolo- gist Husser! (1970). Th~ life world (or the natural attitude from the standpoint of the individual) is the self-evident givenness of mundane experience:As part of living spontaneously in the life world wetake for granted- that certain things are the way they appear to be without really questioning why this should be so. Husser! has argued that sci - ence, like all our knowledge, is grounded in the self-evidence of the life world , and as such its epistemological status is never really put to the question. Theories of personality and the ways they are tested, the phenomenologist would say, are part of the life world too . .

In common with other scientific theories, those having to do with personality assume that reality (phenomena) can be treated as separate, definable units that can be broken down, compared, and related to each other. Personality is one such unit in relationship to the organ - ism's larger environment. Indeed, as it is usually defined, personality is a conceptually independent system in its environment. Furthermore, the very operation of personality is generally understandable only in terms of the articulation and relationships of its smaller components or subsystems. Thus, things (or shall we say, phenomenal fields) can be explained and understood by taking them apart and seeing how they fit_ together. This "fit" implies the assumption that things go together on functional or teleological grounds, that one thing leads to or causes an- other. These relationships, in turn, are made plausible by the thepry or model that defines their saliency or relevancy. In the final analysis, the power of the theory is supported experimentally if the empirical dati("

24 Interpreting Life Histories

make sense in terms of the relationships that the theory specifies. When the life history is seen in these terms, it becomes the expres-

sion of a category or set of categories in some researcher's mind . Thus, the psychological investigator might conclude that X is a "per- fect example of the paranoid adaptation characteristic of his culture." The phenomenon of the life history, in this case that of somebody far removed culturally from the investigator, has been translated into the investigator's familiar conceptual and analytical categories. By estab- lishing relations between these categories according to the specifica- tions of some Freudian psychodynamic model, the researcher then in- fers the paranoia and justifies the theory to himself. He is making sense of this person-so unlike himself, the product of a different culture - entirely in his own frame of reference. He neither qu.estions the larger context of his scientific operations, nor does he attempt to understand the phenomenon in its own terms.

- What is being understood here? Do events really operate in the sub- jectivity of a person's life the way they are described by the model that the investigator uses? The construct of the personality, when thought of in these terms, may seem arid, artificial, and arbitrary com- pared with our impression of the living reality of the person himself in his true immediacy . By studying the life history to study personality, we often seem to end up understanding a method of looking at a life rather than the life itself, or, for that matter , even alternative ways of looking at another life.

The Study of the Individual-Society/Culture Relationship

Another basic etic-nomothetic approach to understanding the life his- tory is to focus on the nexus between the individual and the sociocul- tural system. The nature of that connection has been variously concep- tualized in life history research, but for the most part a functional -dialectic point of view forms the basis of the investigator' s

( theoretical assumptions (although psychological or cognitive variables

\

may be introduced into the analysis). This view regards the individual

I as a component of a larger system of structured relationships whose ongoing functioning and patterned meanings maintain society in a state of internal equilibrium as well as adaptation to its external en- vironment. In this scheme the individual occupies successively and simultaneously a series of socially defined roles for which he is so-

Life History Research in Anthropology 25

cialized and whose proper realization has functionally adaptive consequences. This is the functional assumption, we might say. More- over , the analyst also recognizes that there is likely to be a discrep-

r ancy between what individuals want to do (their personalities)-at least at some point in their lives and at least in certain respects on

/ many occasions - and what they should do (the way society defines their roles).

l uence of social transactions becomes a major point of interest. How li The dialectic by which the gap is narrowed or bridged as a conse-

oes the transformation inherent in this dialectic come about? What are its specific mechanics? Looking at a particular person in the detail of his life and comparing him with others may give us some insight into the process. If the individual is deviant or maladjusted in his group, it can be assumed that deficient socialization, exposure to life experiences unusual for that culture, or personality problems hamper his capacity or desire to interpret and act up~cti-v~back from his environment, making him the kind of oeviant he is. By om-..------ paring this person, as he emerges in his life history , with other, better- adjusted people in his society, it is theoretically possible to establish the conditions under which the dialectics of socialization and social control in its myriad forms are successful in producing people who can

v adequately maintain the system in their social functioning. It may be possible even to generate propositions out of this line of research for testing in other societies.

In operating from this angle, the investigator is creating an artificial problem divorced from the life of the subject. While the subject is talking about experience, that is , experience with subjectively intended meanings, the investigator is talking about "objective" events , as though he could take these uniquely personal thoughts, feelings, and ideas away from the subject and put them in the realm of pure abstract language, which he alone understands and which he manipulates in his infinite wisdom because he sees something bigger and more important of which the subject is unaware .

What is this bigger problem? It is essentially nothing more than an abstract concept of society and the individual standing in some pre- sumed relationship to each other. The particular quality of any individ- ' ual relationship to social experience can then be measured by some standard of optimum adjustment and social functioning that exists in the researcher's mind. Recall that as an article of faith he understands

26 Interpreting Life Histories

society as a functionally articulated whole which, for its own health, must train and motivate individuals to fill certain niches and to con- form to preestablished normative codes.

The Phenomenology of Subjective Experience

As we have mentioned, there is an alternative to the etic-nomothetic approach for making sense of the life history. The most obvious things a life history tells us about are the subjective aspects of phenomenal consciousne~s. If Earle (1972) is right that the autobiography is only meaningful as an expression of subjective being in which the individ- ual reflects on what he understands as himself, then all other exercises in dealing with the life history are spurious compared with the. inter- preter's proper efforts to bridge the gap between himself and the life history text, so that he enters into the stream of subjectively recol- lected experience as unencumbered by prior notions of "personality" or "society" as possible. We are arguing that the fundamental issue of the life history, therefore, is appropriately that of phenomenal con- sciousness as the individual himself experiences it, mediated through our own interpretive efforts .

The life history makes us aware of a fundamental philosophical is- sue. What are we interested in, after all, in our attempts to make sense of the world? Is it the phenomenon we are investigating in its own right (in this case, the life history), or how well our models seem to enable us to interpret the world? Both, we would argue, yield vastly different kinds of understanding.

What we understand in any course of study depends to a large ex- tent on what we define as constituting understanding , which is to say, what is important to understand and the methods we use in pursuit of that objective. The etic-nomothetic orientation described by Allport emphasizes generalizing and model building in an abstract frame of reference that is externally imposed on phenomena . On the other hand , the ernie-idiographic approach, which he contrasts to the etic- nomothetic, concerns itself with the specific and unique richness of a phenomenon, so that we understand the particular (the individual, the subjective) rather than the general. No two cases are alike in their total

I gestalt. In approaching the life history from this view, we are led inev- itably to consider the ob:ious and compell_ing ~ubjectivity of its pro- duction, for, after all , th1s IS what makes 1t umque: the personal and

History Research in Anthropology 27

irreplaceable creation of one person as he sees his own life , a life un- like that of any other.

In a philosophical sense this is a fundamentally valid alternative to the "scientific" approach to the study of personal documents, which has long dominated research in this area. As we see it , the phenomen~ ological approach , which is concerned with "meaning" and subjective "truth," restores some much-needed balance to the runaway tendency in the social sciences to reduce people to categories and abstractions in / the service of model building and model testing . So long as this atti - tude prevails as the standard for social scientific research , the unique existential texture of phenomena will be reduced to the status of the extraneous , and the individual will eventually be lost in the maze of scientific generalities. While we can see the justification of generaliz- ing approaches in dealing with large-scale social processes and certain kinds of comparative research, there is little reason to accept this ten - dency in the study of individual lives as subjective products where a reasonable alternative exists .

In subsequent chapters we propose to outline the assumptions and methods of such an approach , which incorporates phenomenological and existential perspectives, and to show how it can be applied inter- pretively to life history data . We will then critique contrasting ap- proaches, attempting what Ricoeur (1974b) calls a "conflict of inter- pretations" that seeks to illuminate the nature and limitations of each opponent's position. We shall also consider the specific problem of in- terpreting the life histories of women, which, because of the various assumptions we hold about women , raises in a challenging way some of the issues and considerations we have just outlined.

Finally we shall reassess the seeming ly contradictory positions taken toward the life history. In doing so, we must come to grips with the question of whether or not strategies focusing on the general and theoretical as opposed to those focusing on the unique can be recon- ciled in life history research so that each approach balances or in some way contributes to the other without necessarily ruling it out. A fruit - ful way of looking at the problem is to adopt the perspective of some cognitively oriented psychologists who are aware of the etic!emic problem in cross-cultural research ( cf. Berry 1969 ; Price-Williams 1974 , 1975; Brislin, Bochner, and Lonner 1975) . We shall entertain the notion that it is possible and even desirable to see our own scien- tific models or etic constructs as having a dialectical relationship with

28 Interpreting Life Histories

the native conceptualization of experience , be it individual or cultur- ally standardized. By being willing to correct our entry categories (or models) in light of units that are meaningful to the native society or in- dividual we are studying, we may be able to cast something that is "real" to the native into something approximating a useful scientific metalanguage we can use for control and comparison.

Thus, the units of phenomenal experience that we advocate as the legitimate focus of study can be reconciled with certain units or cate- gories in an etic model. What remains of the entry category after the emics are considered tells us something about the usefulness and sen- sitivity of the model in taking account of variations of subjective expe- rience in cultural context. In comparing individual lives from different cultures in their phenomenal richness we may find that the models we customarily use to deal with such experience are too broad and ab- stract to have anything more than a very limited analytical and de- scriptive power. We may discover , however , that if we scrupulously compare individual lives in context and check them against our model, instead of confounding model and phenomenon, we open the way for changes in the entry categories that would make them more use- ful cross-culturally in describing and explaining functional equiva- lences in individual behavior from the standpoint of its subjective and uniquely textured meaning. We do not advocate that anthropologists abandon the use of individual cases for purposes of generalization and hypothesis testing ; we are simply saying that the models we use can and even should be reworked in light of openness to new experience to accommodate the special properties of unique individuals and specific cultural events .

j lf we do not know the subjective meaning of lives we are compar- 1 ing and evaluating, then we cannot construct an adequate descriptive

~ 1 framework (based on the emic -etic dialectic) that would have anything

more than strongly culture-bound as well as highly abstract and typ- ified significance for us. And by not critically examining what we are doing in interpreting the data, we never really grasp what we are actu - ally comparing and understanding. Indeed, it is easy to be content with this state of affairs as long as our conclusions meet the specifica- tions of our models , and since our scientific operations seem natural and inevitable , there is often little impulse to question our equally in- escapable "scientific" conclusions .

Thus, our goal will be to show the limitations we impose on our un-

Life History Research in Anthropology 29

derstanding by relying on a scientific, model -oriented method of inter- pretation , such as psychoanalysis or functionalism . By redirecting at- tention to the act of interpretation itself in relation to the immediate data , we hope to show that there is, in fact, an alternative method.

65

Interpreting a Pann.~

Thus far we have argued that the life history may be regarded as a source for understanding the subjective aspects of individual experi- ence articulated through the presentation of a subjective world. In at- tempting to apply our perspective to a specific life history , it has been necessary, for reasons of time or space, not to present either the entire sociocultural horizon of the individual or the total life history itself, al- though we will try to give all aspects a balanced treatment. Although we find it necessary to edit and condense the presentation in this way , we feel we have retained enough information to justify our attempt to interpret it. Ideally, our endeavor should serve as a brief demonstra- tion of what kind of understanding can be obtained through the appli- cation of the basic principles of phenomenology, existentialism, and hermeneutics we have just outlined .

The narrative material is presented as a case history, consisting of illustrative extracts and schematic summaries marshaled together by an outsider from the original life history text in the service of his analy- sis, evaluation, or interpretation. We have chosen our highlights and representation to conform as closely as possible to continuities and se- quences in the autobiographical narrative.

The life history in question is that of Blanca Gonzalez, a thirty-six- year-old Guajiro woman living in the Baja Guajira of Venezuela; she related her life history to the senior author , through a translator , over a four-month period in 1965 . Translation was from Guajiro to Spanish.

Blanca was a rather solemn woman with a sad , careworn face. Her

66 Interpreting Life Histories

smiles and laughter always seemed to have a dry, bitter quality. When she did smile or laugh, the senior author was always aware of the in- congruity that one of her front teeth was capped in gold , while the other one was missing.

Blanca was a poor woman who owned neither land nor cattle, and her husband was currently unemployed and away looking for a job as a laborer in Perija , to the south of the Baja Guajira where she lived. She had four children who lived with her: two older girls , who were fourteen and twelve years old, a boy , eight , and a little daughter , about three. She articulated no particular hopes for herself or her chil- dren but she was anxious that her husband should soon secure em- ploy:nent. Blanca, like many Guajiro mothers, was harsh ~nd distant with her children and frequently beat them. For the semor author, defined as a social superior, however , she was all smiles ~nd the model of the ideal informant. These traits suggested that there might have been an authoritarian streak in her personality. She lived from hand to mouth in the most uncertain circumstances imaginable , but , strangely, rarely complained about her current situation except when she commented on her children's insubordinate behavior. The fam- ily lived in a small one-room house constructed of branches and mat- ting , about forty miles northeast of Paraguaipoa in the Venezuelan

Baja Guajira. In order to put the events of her life , as she related them , in proper

perspective , it is essential first to consider the gene~al cultural. ~ack­ ground that constituted Blanca' s horizon , one in wh1ch all traditiOnal Guajiro live, as well as the more specific ethnographic encounter and the interpersonal situation in which the life story was elicited .

Perhaps the most immediate and striking feature of Guajiro culture is the nomadic pastoral adaptation to the arid , desertlike environment of La Guajira Peninsula in northwestern Venezuela and northern C~­ lombia. Soon after the Spaniards arrived with cattle and other domesti- cated animals , the Guajiro abandoned their hunting and gathering sub- sistence patterns and took to raising cattle , sheep, and goats acquired from the Spaniards through trade and theft. The Guajiro also adopted agriculture where it was practicable. . . .

Also striking is the matrilineal principle of soc1al orgamzat10n that permeates the fabric of Guajiro cultural life , resounding like a leit~o­ tiv in virtually all areas in which the Guajiro conduct the1r affarrs. Each Guajiro matrilineage is exogamous and has its own internal structure consisting of smaller, interrelated minilineages, and each rna-

The Subjective World of a Life History 67

trilineage possesses a corporate character. The lineage is headed politi- cally by a cacique, or chief, who inherits his position from the mater- nal uncle . The cacique is the political mediator of the group ' s internal affairs and acts as the legal re_presentative of the lineage in its dealings with other lineages.

Marriage arrangements between lineages represent the basis of po- litical security ; it is customary for chiefs to marry off their daughters and sororal nieces to other caciques in an attempt to build up political and military alliances for the protection of their group. In Guajiro so- ciety , a small lineage without friends and allies is considered fair game for the predatory instincts of larger, more powerful lineages , who exploit their superior strength at the expense of defenseless groups in the absence of centralized political authority . Even when no political considerations are involved , marriage in Guajiro society is al- ways an economic and social arrangement between the families of bride and groom. Formal marriage occurs only under conditions in which the groom's lineage makes a bride payment in cattle , horses , mules , and jewelry to the bride ' s family , the exact amount of which has been agreed upon beforehand.

Guajiro society is rigidly stratified in terms of wealth in livestock , retainers , and access to political power. The chiefly or noble class controls the outcome of political conflict and the redistribution of wealth in society (especially in their own lineages) , and they manipu- late for their own advantage those whose interests they protect. The commoners, while they have their own resources , are under the no- bles ' protection and are dominated by them . There is also a retainer class that serves the nobles , and a class of slaves who have been ac- quired through war, sold to remove a debt , or born to their position.

The supernatural system is characterized by the importance attached to dreams and the acquisition of power through dreaming . Magical fe- tishes that the individual obtains through dreams enable him , for ex- ample , to protect himself from real and supernatural danger, to en- hance his sexual attractiveness, and to amass wealth in cattle and other valuables, thus rai sing his social status .

The individual in Guajiro society plays out his life in the shadow of his matrilineal kin group . He is born as the child of his mother into the eiruku (lineage; literally , " flesh of the mother" ), and he is socialized to feel primary responsibility to the lineage ; he learns that if he conforms to the expectations of his kinsmen he will eventually inherit from them. Even his marriage is not a personal matter involving his private

I

I

68 Interpreting Life Histories

feelings but rather the affair of the lineage and its chiefly authority. Conflict in the lineage is ruled out by normative definition, but if it oc- curs it is sanctioned by disinheritance and ostracism. Antisocial behav- ior, especially aggression, tends to be projected onto or displaced against outsiders (Watson 197 4).

Any criminal act committed by a member of the lineage (rape, mur- der, theft, insult) is the responsibility of the group as a whole, and col- lective action . becomes the obligation of each and every individual. When a Guajiro dies his property is redistributed among members of the lineage and his body is buried in the lineage cemetery. The soul goes on a long journey to a cave in an island off Cabo de Ia Vela to join the spirits of other departed members of his lineage, with whom he lives forever in peace and harmony, always remaining in the social position he had in his mortal life.

While kinship sets the dominant tone of the individual-culture rela- tionship in this society, the individual's role in the division of labor also has pronounced consequences for the quality of his life. The most obvious determinant of the general course of the individual life other than kinship is sexual identity. Male and female roles are very dissimi- lar in this culture, as they are in most cultures, and presuppose very different kinds of socialization.

Men attend to the herding of the animals, build the houses and cor- rals, and determine movements to new pastures . Men administer fam- ily property, are more or less actively involved in political decisions depending on their social status, and defend the integrity and interests of their lineage against hostile groups. Going to war to avenge an un- resolved criminal act committed by a member of another group against one of their own and fighting to destroy a weak competitor group at the behest of the chief represent activities that virtually all Guajiro men become involved in at some point in their lives.

In some respects men lead a dualistic existence. On the one hand, a man lives matrilocally with his wife or wives at certain times of the year, administering the property in livestock he has left in his wife's care for her support and that of her children; on the other hand, he must also visit his mother, sisters, and maternal aunts and uncles and dispense his obligations to his matrilineal kin. Men are thus simultane- ously involved in two very different forms of social participation, and they must try to balance their involvement to take account of their pri- mary allegiance to the matrilineal kin group without, however, for- getting the wife and her family, who are important political allies who

The Subjective World of a Life History 69

must be treated with circumspection, respect, and consideration to avoid losing their goodwill.

While she owns her property in domesticated animals and may su- pervise their care when the husband is away, the Guajiro woman is not herself ordinarily responsible for pasturing and watering the livestock. She is primarily responsible for domestic upkeep, care of the children, cooking, processing dairy products, acting as official hostess for the family, and weaving articles of clothing and daily use for her family and for sale for her own profit. The respectable, responsible, and ad- mired wife in Guajiro culture is economically proficient, impeccable in moral behavior, and adept in the social graces (see Gutierrez de Pineda 1950).

In preparation for adult married life, the Guajiro woman must at the time of her first menses undergo a period of confinement that lasts one to several years. During this time her social activities are restricted· she is subjected to various food and behavior taboos; and she receive~ explicit instruction in moral, economic, and social resr>onsibilities (Watson-Franke l976a). Advanced training in weaving is also given at this time (see Watson -Franke 1974).

When she is finally brought out of confinement, the girl is ready for marriage. To a large extent, the Guajiro woman is a pawn in her fami- ly's attempts to arrange a suitable marriage for her; marriage brings with it a sizable bride payment and connections with another family who, it is hoped, will render political favors. She has little or no choice of a husband, for he has been selected for her by familial au- thorities on the basis of economic and political considerations. This choice may inspire disagreement if not outright rebellion in the bride- to-be if she dislikes the man in question, but there is usually not much she can do except to resign herself to the decision of the family, unless she is prepared to flee the security of the lineage and seek her fortune in the city or with some other group. In some families, how- ever, it may be possible for the woman to argue effectively against an arranged marriage; but this generally occurs only when the par- ents recognize that the girl's right to determine her own destiny is more important than the collective interests of the family, a decidedly un.usual phenomenon in this culture with its collectivistic, Iineage- onented thinking.

Occupational specialization and social class also influence the na- t~re of individual experience in Guajiro culture. In discussing occupa- tional specialization, we might briefly consider the role of political

70 Interpreting Life Histories

leader, whose attributes have well-defined cultural properties. The chief (alaulaa), or cacique , represents his lineage in legal and political matters, resolving internal disputes and settling conflict between his group and other groups through diplomacy or warfare, depending on which option he feels he has. The office usually passes from maternal uncle to eldest sororal nephew within the highest ranking line of the lineage, although a certain leeway of choice is given the chief to in- sure selection of the best-qualified candidate (Watson 1976b).

Once the candidate is chosen for instruction in cacicazgo , his life changes dramatically and takes on a very special quality. At this point he usually moves in with his maternal uncle-a departure from the usual pattern of matrilocal residence-and intensive training begins. At first the candidate learns the theory of being a chief, that is, how to conduct himself in pub lic, how to interpret the law , how to talk prop- erly, and the like. When he has mastered this theory , he watches his uncle at work and accompanies him to political events, learning the practical applications of what he has been taught.

The cacique , unlike the average Guajiro, has a more complex cog- nition of the way the sociocultural system operates, in that he sees more significant relationships and complex implications arising out of behavior. He must know how to apply the ideal culture to any contin- gency, but he must be aware of the way people behave under stressful situations and he may have to bend the rules to fit individual needs and motivations. In other words , he must make difficult decisions affecting life and property with which the average man need not concern him- self, and he must struggle with the temptation to use his power and au - thority to consolidate his own private advantage . This conflict of inter- ests between private and collective needs also does not touch the ordinary man in this culture except in a marginal way.

Social class position likewise significantly affects the subjective na- ture of experience. The upper-class person , who is more likely to be involved in political decisions, assumes more responsibility for pro- tecting and sustaining the well -being of his lineage group than the average person, but he is also given more opportunity to be irresponsi- ble and selfish if he chooses to abuse his power in political and eco- nomic matters. An attitude of disciplined responsibility, however , seems the predominant solution to this inherent conflict. Upper-class people generally act in a very controlled manner, channeling their be- havior into the forms prescribed by social norms. The upper-class woman, for example, usually behaves with the utmost propriety; she is

The Subjective World of a Life History 71

careful not to let a breath of scandal touch her and she is ever mindful of the need to adopt a reserved , distant circumspection in her dealing with men. In her role as hostess , however , she treats men and women alike with consideration and grace, observing all the rules of hospital- ity to the letter.

The noble of either sex is more aware than the average person of the consequences of behavior in social and political contexts. He realizes the profound implications of his acts as an individual and their possible moral and legal consequences , and he monitors his behav- ior accordingly.

The commoner adopts a more compliant, less responsible mode of dea~ing with his environment. Knowing full well he is under the pro- tectiOn of the c~1ef and nobles of his lineage, he looks to the'it for sup- port and protectiOn and he learns to assume a subservient, obe~t-de- meanor to elicit their consideration and to avoid falling into their ba~ graces . His attention is focused on the more concrete problems of hi~ ~ immediate lif~ situation. With outsiders he is cautious and respectful, a strategy designed to protect him from aggressive acts .

Technically , there is no longer slavery in Guajiro society , although ~e fa_cto sl,~very still exists . The Guajiro nowadays refer only to their retamers. The slave has no power of self-determination at all, and

the commoner who has indentured himself as a retainer to a noble has very little liberty. A slave or retainer is cared for and protected by the noble only because he is a valuable piece of property; in the strict sense he has little or no worth as a person in his own right, for his role IS not sanctiOned by kmship obligations. He must submit to the de- mands of his master no matter what these involve and however much they m~~ d~mean ~is i~tegrity as a person. A model of d~gradation for all G~aJiro IS Implicit m the servant-master relationship.

It IS probably safe to assume that in certain important respects, at least, the slave or retamer must see life as outside his own control-a view that invites a sense of powerlessness and alienation- for there is little hope that he will ever leave his special circumstances except, possibly, through a desperate act fraught with potentially disastrous consequences. Yet there may be positive feelings associated with this kmd of experience . The slave or retainer may feel protected and se- cure m the knowledge that there is no escape.

. While the foregoing description of the culture context and the indi- VIdual-culture nexus is admittedly sketchy, it serves to give some of the background necessary for the kind of holistic interpretation of

72 Interpreting Life Histories

experience advocated by hermeneutics . We now turn to the immediate context in which the particular life history of Blanca Gonzalez was originally collected. Since one of us, Watson , collected the original data, made the initial observations , and edited the text, these circum- stances will be described by him . The following is Watson ' s account

of what happened as he saw it. I will attempt here to delineate briefly the circumstances under

which the field situation in question was brought about , my impres - sions of what went on in the encounter leading up to the elicitation of the life history material , and my initial attempts to make sense of the

recorded text. A month or so after I had been in the field I became acquainted with

a very powerful chief who suggested that his son, Nemecio , might work as my assistant and translator. Since I had initially been having difficulties establishing contact with the Guajiro and had gathered little data, I eagerly -seized the opportunity to advance my work, thinking that a person with connections would be very helpful. The son and I made contact and he agreed to work for me at a weekly salary for as long as I needed him . Nemecio proved to be very adept , indeed , in his job as translator, informant, and contact man . He was aggressive, in- telligent, resourceful , and unafraid; and he was absolutely masterful in playing on the reputation of his father to motivate potential informa/nts to cooperate with us.

One day as we were walking among the cacti and divi-divi tr~s in the Guajiro desert , we chanced upon a small rancho located ;_9-ffiewhat off the beaten path . Determined not to lose the chance to o some an- thropology, I suggested to Nemecio t~e __ _stgp see whether we could persuade the people to help us in our research . I needed to find more Guajiro mothers and children to continue my study of socializa-

tion and personality development. We went over to the rancho . Nemecio called out the greeting in

Guajiro. After several moments a Guajiro woman in her thirties, rather shabbily dressed , appeared in the doorway . She answered in Guajiro. Nemecio proceeded to explain, as best I could tell with my limited Guajiro, that I was a white "doctor" who wanted to learn about the Guajiro, and he wondered whether she would be willing to help. I was prepared , he added, to pay her for her time and effort.

The woman invited us inside and slung some hammocks for us . learned that her name was Blanca Gonzalez , that she was married , and that she had four children . Her husband was presently unemployed,

The Subjective World of a Life History 73

and since the family had no livestock , the man was out looking for work. The family was obviously in bad financial straits ; in fact , there was very little food in the house and I suspected they were going hun- gry . Blanca was eager to cooperate . She explained that she and her family were more than willing to help an important arejuna (white) doctor who was the friend of old chief Raul.

This much at the very outset suggested some of the motivations be- hind Blanca's decision to enter into the informant relationship . It was clear that the prospect of receiving payment to meet the family's seri - ous economic needs must have been an influencing factor. It repre- sented a potential way out of difficulties and may have activated fanta- sies about receiving unlimited , gratuitous nurturance . It was al so clear that this consideration alone might not have been enough to overcome Blanca' s suspiciousness , an important factor that emerged in subse- quent conversation with her. Since I entered the relationship under the auspices , so to speak , of a greatly respected and feared cacique , how- ever, his sponsorship undoubtedly helped to elicit compliant behavior and countered the subject ' s anxieties about my intentions. Her empha- sis in the life story on the abuses she had suffered in the past may have been in part related to her perception of me as somebody who would shower her with favor out of pity and sympathy.

My feelings for Blanca in turn were positive and anticipatory . When I saw that she tried to be friendly to me and willingly supplied me with detailed information , I looked forward to my visits with her. In the beginning I experienced a twinge of nervousnes s as we felt each other out, and I was always afraid I would say the wrong thing and disrupt the relationship . But the situation seemed to improve with every visit and I began to think my fears were groundless . At some point-I cannot remember exactly when- I came to regard her as my best informant , as somebody from whom I could get almost unlimited data. This may not have been true, but it seemed that way when I compared Blanca with other informants who supplied me with far les s data and who did so with much greater reluctance. I am sure , I was affected, too, by my sympathy for her plight , and I undoubtedly over- reacted at times in my anxiou s concern to believe any and all her tales of woe. I was hesitant to question her critically about these events or to ask her to resolve some of the discrepancies I discovered in the ac- count of her life she gave me. I was simply afraid of seeming unsym- pathetic in the context of the helpfulness and trust we had created to- gether with Nemecio ' s assistance .

74 Interpreting Life Histories

The presence of my translator, Nemecio, and the role he played in the encounter were extremely critical. Since Blanca spoke virtually no Spanish and since my Guajiro was very limited at the time, N~mecio became the medium through which we did most of our commumcatmg with each other. Nemecio, being the kind of person he was, elicited support and trust in others . His pleasant , joking behavior wan~ed Blanca to the task of talking with us . But being the son of a chief, Nemecio undoubtedly hindered the subject from expressing certain kinds of attitudes and emotions (e.g., hostility toward formal authori- ties and whites) of 'which he would have disapproved. Blanca must have realized that Nemecio could persuade me not to continue a rela- tionship with an informant if he judged that the informant was ~ot honest or was not cooperating. Nemecio had the habit of conveymg that kind of authority to people, and Blanca was anxious for her own

reasons to keep _the interviews going. Nemecio, in turn , was accountable to me , and I knew he felt he

should provide me with " good" data for the wages he received. He did this by selecting good informants and motivating them to cooper~te , and occasionally by overdramatizing and distorting in his translatiOn what the informant related, as I subsequently learned and which I had to correct. Thus , the life history of Blanca as it finally reached me had undergone a series of changes in the process , with Blanca talking with me through Nemecio and predicating her behavior on her perception of our expectations , and with Nemecio editing the material to conform to my needs and his at the same time. This complex situation persisted over several months , but the mutual understanding, rapport , and ca- maraderie that we had built up over this time seemed to resolve poten- tially serious misunderstandings and to reduce the distorting effects of

the "translation" process. To give the reader some idea of the tone of our later encounters,

along with the particular pleasures they afforded , I am including the following exchange taken from my field notes. The humor, trust, and good fun are readily apparent, I think, within the serious business of

doing ethnography:

LW: You were saying last time that you used to be afraid of go - ing to the lagoon to draw water when you were about twelve and

living near ---. B: Yes, mama used to send me there late in the day as night was falling . There were bad things , dangerous things near the well.

The Subjective World of a Life History

LW: What were they? B: Different things. People said that the waniilu [evil spirits] went to the well at night to kill innocent people, and once when I was out late and about ready to go back-it was already dark -1 saw Keralia [a large luminous lizard who rapes women with his tail and kills them]. I was rea lly scared because I knew he would impregnate me with his tail and I would give birth to maggots and die. I saw him from afar and I didn't think he saw me . I managed to get home all right. LW: What else was bad about the well? B: There was a young man who hung around there who would have intercourse with animals. He had a big penis. The girls were scared when he was there because if he didn ' t have it with a burro he would force a girl to submit to him and he would in- jure her. N: That guy sounds like a cousin of mine. But he actually mar- ried a girl and then wou ldn 't sleep with his wife because he on ly liked it with his burro. [We all laugh.] LW: Well, we have people like that all over the streets at night in our cities and they' re not waniilu either.

75

This mixture of straight reportage , fantasy , and humor was very characteristic of our encounters and we all seemed to enjoy them immensely.

I am in a much better position to discuss my own preunderstandings than those of Blanca or Nemecio . The most serious of these, I suspect, was my insistence , at least in the beginning , on directing the flow of personal narrative into certain preestablished categories, such as the socialization of dependency, or aggression training, which I wished to investigate as part of my research design. I believed that data bearing on these themes were "good," "important," "worthwhile," and that other kinds of data , while interesting , were essentially irrelevant for my purposes . The life history , which I elicited apart from data on the culture and child rearing, was the only source of data where I tapped to any degree a free recall , and even here I would sometimes concen - trate on certain aspects of Blanca's situation that I considered to be of special interest to my research. I realize now that I saw the life history primarily as a supplementary source of data on socialization experi - ences . That this was , in fact , a kind of "prejudice" (an unproductive preunderstanding) was quite possible, for although I was willing to

76 Interpreting Life Histories

admit my preunderstanding was an arbitrary one and grew out of certain theoretical commitments, l was insistent on settling for the sort of un- derstanding generated within the reassuring confines of my system . l use the word "prejudice" with caution , because it is a retrospective judgment and because I now feel that it forced me into methodical questioning and did not allow me to hear the questions posed by Blanca in her world.

Another preunderstanding had to do with my view of the Guajir0, formed through my reading of published accounts of their culture . This preunderstanding was both productive and unproductive . Because I knew them as aloof, touchy people who were easily offended and who would not forgive a slight or oversight , my preunderstanding helped me to appear socially sensitive, allowed me to maintain rap- port , and enabled me to elicit data. But it also inhibited me to a great degree , perhaps .because I overreact these characteristics and imagined them to be more threatening than they were. Since I feared offending them, I felt with most Guajiro that I could not get them to talk about certain supposedly "sensitive" areas such as sex or family conflict. (Probably my assumptions were not strictly warranted in all cases.) Nor did I feel l could challenge their statements with impunity , as I might have with somebody from my own culture. I knew the Guajiro were accustomed to ask compensation for damages for insults to their persons , and I had already had one unpleasant encounter with an in- formant who threatened to sue me because l had shown her disrespect. In essence, my preunderstanding made me believe that only certain kinds of information could be safely obtained.

A third preunderstanding , if not to say prejudice , was my largely unquestioned assumption that data elicited in fieldwork were "real" and had some kind of ultimate or fixed validity that was basically in- dependent of the circumstances in which they were evoked and the va- garies of the translation process that all data necessarily undergo. I as- sumed that these bits and pieces of information , even those in the life history, could be treated as discrete facts that related to empirical events, rather than statements whose true significance lay in the way they had been negotiated in the encounter. I was not at that time pre- pared to question my basic epistemological presuppositions. The texts simply spoke for themselves; my operations did not have to be exam- ined in assessing their meaning.

The upshot of all this is that my preunderstandings in the field dic- tated (I) that only certain kinds of information wou ld be elicited; (2)

The Subjective World of a Life History 77

that these had to make seh se in terms of my analytica l categories; and (3) that data reflected real events in the experiences of the subject and were divorced from what happened in the encounter.

I actually carried one other preunderstanding , I now realize , that ac- counts for the way I am presently approaching Blanca's life history: I felt , in truth , alienated from my own research design. At some vaguely conscious level l felt forced to follow it, and I felt victimized as the existential man who could not exercise his freedom. Why had I not embraced my freedom to choose something closer to my authentic interests in ex istentialism , in concrete people , in the aesthetic rendi - tion of experience? I must have thought in my truly rigid, compulsive way that the academic community would have disapproved had I given in to these threatening interests , which in a very real way de- fined my true but not always self-acknowledged identity. Now, how- ever , that same hidden preunderstanding has come into the forefront of my consciousness and provides the ground through which I can allow myself to be hermeneutically self-reflective. It has become the inter- pretive medium through which I retrospectively capture the aloneness and alienation of Blanca and mediate it as part of my own changed ho- rizon of self-understanding.

Framing these immediate personal preunderstandings are, of course , my own deeply held notions of such matters as time, causality , and history, which were pre-given in my own culture and which I no doubt internalized and have subsequently used in orienting my sense of what a life history means and what interpretive operations can be performed on it. I must add that the nature and influence of these preunderstand- ings are difficult to reconstruct exactly since they lie beyond the usual and immediate level of self-reflection. In any case , my preunderstand- ings of time and individual history as some kind of orderly chronologi- cal sequence leading the indi vidual from birth to old age and death certainly account for the organization of the original text and I believe, bear to some degree on the interpretive presentation that takes Blanca's life to the break with her father. Indeed , I have retained some of the original linear rendering in relating sequences of actions and re- action whose underlying coherence appears to reside in the individual as an autonomous psychological entity acting on experience, which is 1tself a Western notion.

In the interpretation that follows , it has been difficult for us to sus - pend this orientation ent irely . However, because the priorities com- pellingly articulated by Blanca in her subjective world forced us to

78 Interpreting Life Histories

recognize a rather different pattern , we have had to organize causal ex- planations around key events of importance to Blanca and her culture and then work backward and forward in time from them to explore their significant interconnections and ramifications for her. Meaningful " inner time" for Blanca seems integrated into a temporally indetermi - nate matrix of significant happenings from which she draws meaning through basic Guajiro preunderstandings of the nature of honor , the problem of evil , and survival. To engage Blanca interpretively in her own notions of time, personal history , and autonomy, we have had to alter hermeneutically the original linear narrative characteristic of the life history text itself and to portray events and human actions as meaningfully integrated largely in the frame of Blanca ' s subjective rendering of her own dialectical encounter with experience , which is less bound to strict linear chronology and deterministic sequences than we are accustomed to.

To engage in a dialogue with the life history text , in this case, is certainly no easy task , taking into consideration the many complex in- teracting factors that eventually determined its character , including the respective preunderstandings of the subject, the translator , and the an - thropologist, and of course their dialectical interplay. These issues constitute the essential background or context in which the life history should be approached. Yet , as we look at Blanca ' s life history, it is precisely that-the text of that frail life-that claims our attention, our interest. What is it? What does it mean? We realize now that prior preunderstandings were misleading. The text as we have it , the very events that make it up, what it seems to say and mean, all were nego- tiated , consciously and unconsciously in the original encounter. Ques- tions were asked and answered in the process, but always within cer- tain frames of tacit agreement we had assumed . It is now impossible after so many years to reconstruct them fully and understand them , but some features are clear. The domains of tacit understanding began with methodical questions based on my research interests and Blanca's cooperation as an informant. After all, I was a "doctor" and my re- quests were " reasonable ." A neutral ground was created on which in- formation was exchanged. The information conformed to Blanca's sense of personal adequacy as an informant and my critical expecta- tions as an ethnographer. The life history data of the first few months seem, indeed, to be neutrally informative. But as I developed a true feeling for Blanca , born of trust and respect , I tried increasingly to

The Subjective World of a Life History 79

grasp her situation and her di lemmas. This effort was a purely human movement toward mutual engagement.

The meaning-context of our initial encounters , because of our com- mon interests , seemed to assume the elements of a commentary on "growing up," on reaching "competency" in certain areas of life , on learning to cope with the threats and dangers involved , such as the necessity and difficulty of controlling disruptive impulses like sex and aggression , and on learning to assert personal autonomy without being insubordinate.

Later, after we had come to engage each other as two human be- 1

ings, through Nemecio (another person important to us both) , our true possibilities and interests came more into play and our negotiated un- derstandings became increasingly oriented toward defining the mean- ing of the individual as he seeks to find his place in the world, to cope with disappointment and degradation, and to overcome alienation through personal responsibility. Ultimately, I realize, Blanca articula- ted values and attitudes that were meaningful to me as a person and not just as an anthropologist.

Let us now consider Blanca's life history as a fixed text whose form and meaning were in part negotiated in the encounter we have de- scribed. Hermeneutically speaking , it is unknowable as a subjective document in any kind of definitive sense. If we are to capture Blanca's particular subjective world by overarching the difference between it and ourselves, we must be willing to question our categories of scien- tific analysis and look at the text as conscious phenomena produced through her intentionality. Our phenomenological and existential her- meneutics pose the possibility of a dialogue through which some of that subjectively intended world can be interpreted , even though ulti- mately we are the ones who speak about it in our own partially brack- eted life world.

At this point we should add a few words about the general course of our engagement with the accomplished text of Blanca's life history, and our interpretive stance toward it , before we get into the actual in - terpretation of specific events and experiences in the text. As we con- sidered the life history the first time, several years after it was re- corded, the subjective context eluded us. Even then , however , we noticed the subject's obsession with certain themes, and her stance within the text began to form a shadowy but integrated pattern that defined aspects of her subjective world. But for us, this growing

80 Interpreting Life Histories

awareness happened in an offhand sort of way, and our own research interests and theoretical biases kept reducing all of our knowledge of her subjectivity to a marginal status.

Looking at the same life history again years later, we began to es- tablish a different kind of dialectical relationship to the text. We bracketed some of our own prejudices (which were no longer so strong) , were open to existential and phenomenological points of view, and engaged in a self-reflective hermeneutics, where we began to pose different questions that seemed to open up the personal and cultural horizons of the text. Doing this, we sensed, created a new world that had heretofore remained largely hidden. It now seemed as if Blanca were really communicating her possibilities, and they were centrally important and comprehensible within her world .. The infor- mation conveyed by the text was no longer merely a reflectiOn of more important underlying patterns of socialization and character develop- ment, nor could we view the material any longer as merely compliant responses to the "methodical" questions of the original res~ar~h de- sign. Blanca as a subjective being in the world was begmnmg to emerge. Looking back , we suspect that our growing awareness of the subjective dimensions of the text had something to do with the more personalized, existential quality that began to dominate at the end of the narrative. We were finally convinced, as we hope our subsequent interpretation shows, that there was a coherent reality that our scien- tific constructs did not enable us to understand.

In Blanca's life history the life world is the Guajiro frame of refer- ence, whose basic operating principles are never seriously questioned; indeed, this life world possesses, as any life world should, a taken-for- granted rightness and inevitability. It is a world of kinspeople, wi~h the individual assuming especially heavy responsibilities toward hts matrilineal kin group , to which he is bound and to which he is ac- countable for his actions. It is also a world of social and economic ine- quality, with those in power (relatives and nonrelatives alike) wielding control over the dependent, the helpless, the less fortunate. These premises form an integral part of what is essentially Blanca's prereflective awareness of her own condition.

It is the alternation of this world of restrictive kin control and con- stant demand with the less structured world of the bush and peer-group play activities, where experimentation wit? forbi~den desire~ and .the release of tension occur, that lends a spectal quality to GuaJ!fO chtld- hood and growing up in general, and to Blanca's memories of her own

The Subjective World of a Life History 81

childhood in particular. These opposing elements do not so much per- fectly balance each other as they represent the possibility for Guajiros to work out dialectically the conflicting requirements of duty and de- sire, which finds its culmination in the adult world in the search for sexual domination, security, wealth, and political power.

In Blanca's account this quality of the Guajiro life world already makes its imprint on her recollected experiences of childhood. The following passages are illustrative:

I remember when I was little my parents expected me to work from early morning until dark. If I was not helping with the cooking, tending the fire, or helping bring water, I was scolded or sometimes beaten: "You must learn your lesson," my mother would say , "because we Guajiros must be able to work hard ~ with discipline and concentration to master our lives. This way .1 ~ 1 we keep our families strong and keep our enemies from dominat- V ing us." These words made a great impression on me and I tried very hard to always be working.

My favorite job was taking the goats to pasture. This was very important for the maintenance of our family and I was always proud to be entrusted with this responsibility. But it was always fun, too, for we children would meet at the well and fool around-both boys and girls. Since our parents weren't around we'd joke with each other and throw cactus fruit- and play games. We also had romantic meetings. Boys and girls would kiss and touch each other. Boys would ask for our vaginas . We would get very excited but it was very important not to yield to temptation, for our bodies belonged to our family and not to us. I would say, "If you want my vagina you must ask my parents" [they arrange a marriage, involving a payment of cattle and jewelry}. Often I became sexually aroused but I was too afraid to ever do anything except exchange a few innocent kisses. Girls who "played too hard" always got into trouble . ... Sometimes we got so carried away by our excitement we became negligent and lost animals; then our parents beat us and curtailed our liberties. Even though these games were full of danger we looked forward to them.

Certain basic values seem to constitute part of the life world that Blanca accepts. As the above passage already intimates, security is surely one of the most important of these values. Security means to be

r,

82 Interpreting Life Histories

protected and provided for by one's parents and by the larger r.,atrilin- eal kin group . These people are the ones who provide not only live- stock and other essential materials by which adults support themselves but also protection from outside aggression. That outsiders are threat- ening and dangerous Blanca accepts as a natural concom itant of exis- tence (outsiders include even the boys who asked for her vagina'). Thus the individual is vulnerable to their potentially evil, se lf-seeking designs unless he can count on the backing of an interested and con - cerned kin group .

As Blanca tells it , the respect of others is another critical value. ' This value pervades a Guajiro ' s sense of self-worth in all encounters

with the world . The respect of others is not merely enacted in the ren~ dering of protection and security: respect is the very basis for signifi - cant social support and imparts a finality to it. While protection and security, according to Blanca , eliminate or at least diminish fears of being abandoned and exploited by other people, the respect that ide- ally accompanies the fulfillment of social obligations serves the more positive need of enhancing self-esteem . Blanca stated at one point:

One is nobody unless that person can count on the respect of others. It is not enough to find shelter in the family if a person is considered an unreliable fool and is only tolerated . When we Guajiros are young we learn that we must win respect through our actions. If we do not learn the rules, and apply them , we will never get it. And if that happens, our whole life becomes poor and miserable.

Except in certain extreme instances , as we shall see later, Blanca does not question the essential rightness of the ties that bind her to her family and kin group, and indeed to her cultural world. She is obvi - ously conscious of these bonds at a certain level of awareness, but she does not see them in everyday experience as existential possibilities she can choose or reject . It might be accurate to say that she reinter- prets the conditions of social life within the limits set by her normal subjective stance toward the world. We might say that these bonds , contracts, and conditions are the taken-for-granted sedimentation of her life world.

Other aspects of that same life world , even more remote from con - scious reflection-notions of causality , styles of thinking , and the cat- egorization of experience in semantic space-would have to be in - ferred from an in-depth analysis of the subject's linguistic behavior.

The Subjective World of a Life History 83

These aspects are not something we could reasonably expect Blanca to comment upon . They are beyond the task of our interpretation , but nevertheless highly interesting.

We feel that Blanca was unable seriously to censor or distort her life world , even if she did alter the significance and sequence of specific events that took place within it. An important part of understanding the life history text is to identify the uncritical, prereflective attitude that comes through the description of many events and experiences that Blanca did not seem to think she needed to manage or rearrange to create a favorable impression , since they were already "real" and required no commentary on her part. This is a different matter , as we shall see, from her attitude toward other specific events whose mean- ings she critically reflected upon and manipulated in behavioral terms.

A knowledge of Blanca ' s own cultural background and familiarity with other Guajiro life histories helps us to assess the difference be- tween the unique aspects of her specific experience-her particular way of making sense of events-and cultural patterns of behavior she shares with other Guajiro , patterns of thought and action that make up intersubjective reality and that are usually presented with a spontane- ous conviction. Generally speaking , this common life world is neither elaborated along uniquely idiosyncratic lines nor changed significantly through self-reflection in Blanca ' s account.

Guajiro culture assuredly selects, censors , and distorts the nature of experience as it is retrospectively retrieved through memory. Like other Guajiro, Blanca tends to remember and emphasize the threaten- ing and negative, stressing the times she was wronged, abused, and misunderstood by others through no fault of her own (Watson 1974). The tensions and frustrations of always living up to the demands of others , of trying to elicit their respect and ward off their contempt , no doubt have a very strong bearing on why the negative , even the occa- sional failure, stands so prominently in the foreground. Moreover, the meaning of the data-collecting setting for Blanca is a kind of con - straint that selectively limits her rendition. The focus on the negative may have been stimulated by her desire to inspire sympathy and good will in a powerful , respected outsider , but it may also have arisen from Blanca ' s modeling her behavior on other poor individuals who debased themselves before power because they had no alternative.

Blanca, like other Guajiro, also favors certain types of experience , whether positive or negative , stressing the practical , everyday world of economic striving and collective social activity at the expense of the

84 Interpreting Life Histories

intensely personal and mystical. In her life story Blanca squarely places herself in the world of the everyday with only occasional forays into what we would regard as the "supernatural" realm.

Blanca's particular social position also influences her selectively to edit her recollected experience. Like most Guajiro wives of our ac- quaintance whose life histories were also taken , Blanca dwells on her marriage and the problems of adjustment it posed for her. And like other poor Guajiro, she emphasizes the difficulties and deprivations of poverty and her generally frustrating and unsuccessful attempts to deal with them, which brings us back to the predominantly negative tenor of the life history. Because that negativity was shared with other Gua- jiro who were better off and more self-secure , we must see this quality as part of a common ethos and not merely as a by-product of one par- ticular individual's sense of being frustrated and exploited.

Although Blanca's life reveals much of the "natural attitude," the narrative also evidences the effects of self-reflective activity upon the natural attitude. We have the firm impression that Blanca has worked over in her own unique terms certain experiences she is presenting af- ter she has critically appraised their significance for herself and others. And in some instances Blanca ' s reflection upon her experiences (con- flicting and frustrating as they are) has thrown into phenomenological doubt the very givenness of various typified events in her life . Indeed, as she reconstitutes these events by bracketing their giveness for her- self, they come to stand out as merely intended possibilities for her in a field of action rather than things she is condemned to repeat because they are compellingly and inevitably real. These events have become part of Blanca's self-reflective intentionality and as such have become subject to her freely exercised choice.

While the kinship order can be regarded as forming part of the life world , the provisional and contractual quality that implicitly adheres to kinship obligations emerges as an essential ingredient in Blanca's critical self-reflective experience. The volitional quality undergirding the real world of kinship is revealed as Blanca adopts the phenomeno- logical attitude. In the earlier part of her narrative, before she seri- ously questioned her life world, she accepted that kinsmen had legiti - mate claims on the individua l, who was obliged as a member of the kin group to comply with others ' rightful expectations and to submit to the decisions of constituted authority. In return, she as an individual would be nurtured, provided for , protected , and , yes , respected. Se- curity and respect, the cardinal values of Guajiro social life, were sim-

The Subjective World of a Life History 85

ply there for those who had adopted the compliant and dutiful posture for which they had been socialized . However, in Blanca ' s movement toward self-reflexivity, these obligations came to assume the quality of a rule rather than a stable, unchanging truth, for , as she makes clear, specific kinship obligations, like rules , can actually be broken.

In describing her earlier years and her marriage in particular, under very interested and probing questioning, she indicated that in her case the contracts binding human relationships in Guajiro culture were vio- lated without legitimate reason, and usually because of the cruelty and selfishness of human character. At one point Blanca described how her father "sold" her when she was a young woman , marrying her off to a rich Guajiro for a handsome bride payment in livestock, jewelry , and whiskey. Blanca complied with the arrangement, even though she did not know the man, for, as she explained:

My kinsmen owned me and had the right to choose a husband for me . I was the eldest daughter so my father got most of the bride payment for himself. We Guajiro women know this is our fate and we submit to it . We only hope that the man our rela- tives select for us is reasonably kind and has enough resources to maintain us. We fear neglect and drunken beatings.

Given the cultural definitions of the situation that Blanca herself ac- cepted, we can see that it was only proper for her to submit to this de- cision in good faith .

Unfortunately the man to whom she was sold, true to her worst fears , was cruel and sadistic and would beat her for no reason when he was drunk :

He would come home after drinking with his friends, staggering, his breath stinking of rum. He would usually say something like , "/ know you've been fucking so-and-so and you like it because you ' re hot and have to have it. I can smell it when another man has been with you , you filthy whore. /' ll teach you who owns your vagina." Then he'd start beating me with a strap or the fiat part of his machete, or with his fists till/ screamed for mercy or he became afraid he'd done me serious injury. This happened more often than /' d care to remember.

Finally, in despair, she left her husband and came back to her father seeking his protection , which she had every right to do within the

86 Interpreting Life Histories

framework of Guajiro conceptions of redress for marital abuse . The father listened sympathetically and promised support:

"Look," he said, "/' m going to protect you from this guy, but let's wait and see if we can't work this thing out. Basically I think your husband is all right ."

Blanca had some serious misgivings about her father at that point. Why all the concern about getting her back to a brutal man in what seemed to be an impossible situation? As Blanca recalled:

When he talked that way to me, a chill went down my back and my whole body began to tremble. It seemed to me that my father had made up his mind about this thing . God, was he really go- ing to make me stick this out, knowing it was impossible for. me? I fe lt sick in heart and spirit.

The husband soon came looking for her, contrite and sorrowful, bringing a present of several cows and some rum for the father. He apologized to the father and promised to stop drinking and not mistreat Blanca in the future. The father talked to her and finally persuaded her to return, but only after he promised that if she were ever mistreated again, he would never let the man have her back. Blanca remembered:

My father took my position and I fe lt somewhat reassured. He said that he loved his beautiful daughter more than life itself and that my suffering was an injury to his own soul. He was warning my husband that the next time something bad happened he would reclaim his daughter for good. He was so positive and forceful! thought he really meant what he said .

Soon therefter, contrary to his promise, the husband got drunk again and beat Blanca severely, knocking out her front tooth, and accusing her , as usual, of having illicit sexual relat ions with another man. This time, before she lost consciousness from the beating, he threatened to kill her. When she recovered and was physically able, she resolved to flee and return to her father's house. Gathering her few possessions to- gether, she left under the cover of darkness with the help of an older woman who sympathized with her plight. Her sole comfort in this dif- ficult time was the memory of her father's reassuring promise. When she finally returned and her father saw her battered face and tearful eyes, he was profoundly disturbed:

The Subjective World of a Life History

He even broke down and wept before me because he was so grieved by my terrible story. He told me I did not have to return a second time . I could put all my trust in him, my own father who loved me with all his heart .

87

A day or so later Blanca's husband sent a messenger with another gift requesting the father to return Blanca to him. He explained that the father could keep the gift if he cooperated; if he did not, however, the husband would take back the bride payment he had made for the girl. At first the father refused, but then his resolution began to waver. As Blanca remembered, with much bitterness in her voice:

He began to think of all his fat cattle and all that good cher- rinche [rum} , and my needs did not seem so very important anymore. The first seeds of doubt were planted in my mind: was he, in fact, to be trusted with my life?

Finally, B Janca's father asked her to return to her husband once again, confirming her worst fears. He assured her that "things would work out all right." Blanca was horrified by her father's callous disre- gard for her feelings and well-being. How could he put his cattle be- fore her? Oh, if only she still had a mother to protect her.

I just couldn't believe what was happening to me. Nothing really had ever prepared me for this. Sure, I was beaten when I didn't do my work or didn't mind, but when I was good and did what I was told, I was always treated we ll by my parents and re latives. Father was always particularly supportive; if anything, it was mother who could sometimes be cold and critical . This reaction from my father shocked me so much, I remember I almost fainted from the force of it.

In a reaction of deepest despair, Blanca threatened her father that if he tried to make her go back she would kill herself. But the father was adamant and ignored her appeals. She was being unreasonable and he was taking her back. She was to get her things ready for the trip .

At this point, Blanca stated, her father had broken the contract. The provisional quality of their relationship and the contingent nature of her compliance to him had become the focus of a radically self-reflec- tive turn and had surged, with all its hideously negative implications, into a terrible awareness of what the situation really meant for her. In- deed at this point, as the taken -for-grantedness of the relationship was

88 Interpreting Life Histories

placed in fundamental doubt, Blanca began in an existentially mean- ingful way to question some of the basic givens in her life and her per- sonal involvement with them , whereas before she had dutifully ac - cepted this world as naturally and ultimately her own.

Up until now Blanca had complied faithfully and honorably, for she had taken the father's goodwill more or less for granted, but in the moment of truth her father totally failed to reciprocate by giving her the security and protection she rightfully expected, indeed, had a legit- imate claim to. It was clear in Blanca's account that she felt her father failed to live up to his obligations because he put his selfish material interests before her emotional and physical welfare.

Since violation of the "agreement" had occurred in extremis , Blanca's initial impulse , stemming from a sense of despair and hope- lessness, was to overreact by ending the very being of this conflict:

she would kill herself.

I wanted to commit suicide. This was my first reaction, as I re- member. That was the only way out and I was so terribly des - perate , without hope, really. But then in a moment of clarity I thought to myself, "Why should I let this happen to me? Why should I allow them to destroy me?" I realized it was a terrible thing to die. And for what and for whom would I die? I knew , then, that if I committed suicide I would die for nothing , for lit- tle more than these people's selfish ambitions , like the poor little goat who is sacrificed by the shaman to feed the evil spirits who have attacked the sick person in order to eat his soul. This death does not benefit the goat , only the others.

However , once her fundamental aloneness and personal responsibility to herself had become an issue in her desperate self-scrutiny , there was no turning back . Suicide was no solution at all. Rejecting the easy way out, Blanca now came to recognize the existential responsibility she had to assume for her own possibilities. No longer could she take flight into bad faith by insisting on her helplessness or by imbuing the family with the power to rule her life when these same people had al- ready violated her very existence. Now , perhaps, for the first time, and only under the greatest duress, she was aware that she could forge a destiny for herself apart from the cultural definitions and constraints

she had naturally accepted in the past. If we cast this interpretation into the language of self-identity, we

could say that in the aftermath of these terrible events , the easy secur-

The Subjective World of a Life History 89

ity of her traditional self-image was shattered in the recognition of her aloneness. Yet paradoxically , the very awareness of personal freedom that came from radical self-reflection in the face of doubt and despair , as she questioned her stance to the life world , offered the possibility of a new integration of her identity , molded in conformity with her own emerging, honestly acknowledged self-interests. Cast adrift on the sea of her personal freedom by virtue of the extremity of this violation of herself, Blanca resolved to act on the basis of her own selfish needs , regardless of whether such action jeopardized the relationship with her father. After all, had not events revealed this relationship to be rotten to the core?

The basic but unstated conflict inherent in all Guajiro relationships had now assumed an irreversible character in Blanca' s self-reflection and had to be acted upon. Any decision to minimize the bad treatment she had received and return to her husband , thereby securing her fa- ther's approval, was now rendered impossible given her definition of the situation and her newfound sense of autonomy . Really, the only course of action was to flee and start life anew. She could justify her decision to herself easily enough on the basis of her father's failure to respect her essential human dignity. However , in exercising personal freedom in such awesome form , she would lose her father's regard and perhaps the support of her whole family. But she would certainly escape her husband's capricious abuse by leaving, and she might cre- ate for herself a more meaningful , personally fulfilling future.

Freedom was not easy. Blanca saw herself as helpless to a large ex- tent and knew that any decision she made would be fraught with risks, but she knew the customary sources no longer offered her security:

After I had rejected suicide and knew that I wanted to live , noth- ing mattered more than taking my life into my own hands, just leaving, going anywhere, but being able to say to myself, "I can do something . I don't need to depend on bad people."

Having little to lose, Blanca voided the contract binding her to her husband and father-for, after all , had they themselves not made this possible by violating the basic conditions of it? She had finally reached the point where the only decision was to seek her future , whatever it offered , poor and without support , on her own terms . Hu- man beings in their misery , she seemed to be saying, can be driven to desperate courses of action.

The ethnographer, through his probing and insistent qu~stioning at

90 Interpreting Life Histories

this point in the relationship , probably stimulated Blanca into this self- reflective turn . Moving from a neutral to a highly charged personal en- counter, both informant and ethnographer were now working through the material at hand in a context of greater self-awareness and hon- esty. Perhaps Blanca would have described the same situation in the same terms had there been no human encounter, no relentless pressure at the end toward self-examination . We are inclined to think , how- ever, that without that particular experience, through which interaction came to be understood, this material would not have been evoked at all , or, at best , only a very little . It would, we feel, have remained an unsaid part of the life recitation.

As we remove ourselves from the original discourse, we apply our phenomenology toward understanding the underlying, hidden signifi- cance of text events that hermeneutical activity seeks to ·uncover (Ricoeur 1970).- Our own interpretive stance, stressing the revealed possibilities of self-examination and freedom to choose, now becomes the means by which the "unsaid" of the text articulates its meanings through the "said" of the fixed discourse that we are mediating in the hermeneutical encounter. The nature of our endeavor is revealed: first the discourse was forged into a particular meaning-form through the mediated preunderstandings of ethnographer and subject, becoming the text with which we work; now we seem to repeat these same oper- ations , as the text is engaged, on a higher and more explicit interpre- tive level in our search for subjective meaning. We strive , nonethe- less , to remain faithful to the requirements of the hermeneutical dialogue as we pursue that elusive objective.

When Blanca left her father's house she gave up the support world of her family and lineage group. As an uprooted person she sought employment as a domestic in the homes of wealthy Guajiros and Ven - ezuelans. According to her account she quit jobs time and time again if it suited her economic needs , or if the conditions of employment vi - olated her sense of personal dignity . After a number of years on her own she met and married her present husband, a man of completely different character from the first, with whom she has had a family and has been able to stabilize the conditions of her life:

I am satisfied now. We are poor . We have enough to get by. My husband treats me well and keeps his drinking down. My chil- drenfear the rod and obey me. I feel that while things are lack- ing, I have some control over my life.

The Subjective World of a Life History 91

At other, subsequent points in her life history, but in less extreme instances, Blanca felt that she could afford to continue discharging her responsibilities in a relationship , even though the other party might warrant the voiding of the contract by his own selfish behavior. Thus Blanca could validate her own worth as a good and moral person in an evil world and shame others for their lapses. While she was, therefore , free to reject those who violated social contracts, she was also free to rise above the very conditions she had set for maintaining her personal dignity if it suited her need for moral superiority and could be reasona- bly worked to her advantage. This manipulative quality stood out in stark contrast to the compliance and rigidity she had previously exhib- ited in her attitude toward others.

In her life history Blanca recalled a critical incident where her brother refused to give her food when she was hungry, and even de- nied that she was his sister. Several months after this incident, how- ever, the bro~her experienced difficulties and came to Blanca seeking economic assistance:

My heart leapt for joy when my evil brother one day came to me in need. He used to live not too far from here, you know. At the time his children were sick and he was out of work. He never had anything for me when things were going well , no matter how much I suffered. Remember, he had denied me . 1 was in a position to deny him now, but that is not what I wanted. 1 took it upon myself to make him examine the evil of his own nature. 1 told him, "You denied that I was your sister when 1 came to you, but I don't forget quite so easily. You are my brother and 1 will give you food because I still love you."

Even if this episode were pure fantasy , we feel it comments on a subjective truth of Blanca ' s life. She had, out of past experience, come to define herself as capable of . feeling morally superior in a world of criminals , fools , and madmen. This sense had seemingly be- come a very real part of her self-identity, and she made her actions in the world conform to these images.

Blanca accepted as a reality the negative, rejecting character of much of her world , but she did not uncritically take it for granted. ~Janca speculated that the baser nature of human beings might prevail m the absence (and even in the presence) of kinship contracts, and yet she was also aware that people could act compassionately and consid- erately if they had received a proper upbringing. At such moments in

92 Interpreting Life Histories

her rendition she was selecting a cat~gory of behavior and reflecting upon it, drawing certain conclusions and adjusting her perception and adaptive responses accordingly. At a deeper level Blanca was really accepting a basic conflict between good and evil in human nature, with evil (in the form of selfishness and malice) expected to win out most but not all of the time . Proper socialization , as Blanca saw it , provided the antidote to this eternal problem. Her own life had served her as a model for the "good. "

However personally reflective this perspective seems to be, it was nonetheless a typified Guajiro solution to the problem of evil. Blanca ' s life merely illustrated a personal reworking of this common theme. In - deed, Blanca ' s account of her life, like those of other Guajiros, con- tained many statements regarding the importance of severe discipline to insure that a child learn correct behavior to counteract his 'bestial, antisocial proclivities . Blanca, like other Guajiros, seemed unaware that the parent's own harsh , aggressive treatment provided an unfortu - nate model for the child to follow in his dealings with the helpless and less fortunate. In any case, being "good" in the prevailing Guajiro scheme of things meant overcoming the recognized temptation to be nasty, aggressive, and exp loitive, as Blanca demonstrated to telling ef- fect in her forgiving treatment of her brother after she had every right to bear him malice:

Guajiro sometimes grow up to be thoughtless , selfish people, even vicious criminals, because they were never disciplined and punished when they acted bad as children . If the parents and relatives assert their authority, the child is afraid to show his evil; he must control it. Eventually, perhaps this evil in his na- ture will disappear if the family is constant in their expectations. It is important for us never to relax our vigilance, for as soon as we do, our children will become insubordinate and then they will do whatever their bad nature tells them to do .

Blanca herself had been rigorously trained by her parents to behave respectfully and responsibly ; unlike other Guajiros , however, she seemed fortunate insofar as she learned to appreciate the values of her socialization and subsequently internalized them. She has attempted to do the same with her own children, but with imperfect results.

Blanca had evidently forgotten that her own compliant, submissive behavior, her own " goodness ," which we presume stemmed from the

The Subjective World of a Life History 93

propriety of her upbringing , had not neces sarily netted her much con- sideration when it came to the true test. Why, then , should children be good to begin with? These are precisely the kinds of contradictions on which human activity seems so often to turn . The limits of human lu- cidity and consistency are profound. For Blanca the way out of any such potential contrad iction was by validating to herself her moral superiority , even if her goodness was not always rewarded in practi- cal terms.

Two preoccupations dominate Blanca's recollected life experience , and they apply to her life before and after the critical events that led her to leave her family and seek her own way in the world . These pre- occupations are poverty and sexuality. They are , we feel , rather inti- mately associated first with her particular social position within Gua- jiro society, and later with her somewhat marginal status as a Guajiro, although her manner of expressing these concerns is certain ly unique. These preoccupations do not necessarily characterize Guajiros in other social categories.

Blanca selected poverty for special emphasis in recollecting her life story, and she did so virtually from the beginning of the ethnographic encounter. One of her most telling statements had to do with her early hardships and hunger:

I remember many times when there was no food and I went hun- gry . Sometimes I would wake up in the morning with my stom- ach hurting because I had not eaten for days. It was awfu l to know that I would have to go out and do my chores when 1 was already weak from hunger. 1

She also recalled the abuse of the poor by the rich ; the necessity of working long and hard to earn money , and the difficulty of making ends meet; and her present husband's unemployment and the problems it caused.

Blanca believed that her poverty had been the major cause of the

I. The emphasis on her early poverty contradicts Blanca's statements about her father ' s relative prosperity later on, when she feels he sold her out because of greed. He may actually still have been a poor man who was ready to sac- nfice h1s daughter for his paltry herds. which may have come large ly from the bnde payment he received for her. Perhaps it was more acceptable for Blanca to think that her father betrayed her through greed for more, rather than through fear of the rich man or pure economic necessity.

94 Interpreting Life Histories

mistreatment she had received in life , the specific abuses of which she catalogued in considerable and minute detail. If she had been rich , she felt , nobody would have dared to treat her improperly:

I see now that if I had been wealthy-had lots of animals and jewelry-everybody would have been nice to me because they wou ld have been afraid of me or greedy for my property. They wou ld have come waiting on me: "Senora Blanca, how are you? We hear you have not been feeling too well . It is so good to see you. We hope you are well now! " Because, on the con- trary, I was poor, nobody ever did that; they treated us on ly with contempt.

In describing her woes Blanca threw into relief the life style and be- havior of the wealthy and powerful by contrasting their self~assured and self-righteous arrogance and inhumanity with her own empathy for the poor and downtrodden, which came out of her immediate sub - jective knowledge of their desperate condition.

That the subject perceived the ethnographer as a sympathetic and generous listener, as we remarked elsewhere, undoubtedly motivated her to stress her difficult situation , although this theme might have come out even in other circumstances. In any event , unburdening her- self in this way served (I) to justify her position to a neutral but sym- pathetic bystander; (2) to elicit sympathy and compassion; and (3) to secure financial assistance that alleviated her economic problems to some extent. We feel that it is impossible to understand fully this em - phasis on poverty in Blanca ' s story without considering the way she defined the immediate data-collecting situation and evaluated the posi- tive feedback she received. This definition of the situation must have called forth certain types of need and response priorities .

Blanca's view of her sexual feelings was one she shared with most other Guajiro women and was a strik ing theme that ran through her life history account (she repeated the attitudes she learned and applied as a child with her own daughters). Sexuality, Blanca insisted , was not the Guajiro woman's right to contro l and dispense as a free agent. The reality of people's attitudes had to be taken into account. Rights of sexual access to a woman, she explained, were held by her family and were conferred to a man only through formal marriage. Thereafter only the husband had the right to sleep with her , for he had bought her sexuality . Blanca feared the sexual temptation that she experienced as a young , unmarried woman and was indignant (but secretly excited)

The Subjective World of a Life History 95

when boys made obscene advances. Blanca always reminded herself and her tempter that her body was not her own: if a man wanted to have sexual relations with her, he had to talk with the people who owned her.

Blanca recognized , of course , that as an unmarried woman she had sexual needs , but she always had them firmly under control. While she might bestow a few innocent kisses on a boy she favored- she was only human-she made it clear that she could and would not go fur- ther. Unlike other girls , it seems , she had learned the desperate con- seq.uences of improper sexual behavior. When she was on the verge of losmg her head, she always recalled these terrible punishments of her childhood , and these memories sufficiently inhibited dangerous temp- tationS. 1 She also selectively recalled and obsessively rendered a num- ber of negative role models , women who had not learned to behave according to the rules of sexual propriety and who suffered for it. Par- ticularly striking examples were the blatantly homosexual wife of one of her uncles and a deaf and mute girl who promiscuously sought out sex. Later, in her disastrous first marriage and her successful second marriage , she accepted the exclusive sexual rights that her husbands held in her , despite the abuse of the first and the unemployment of the second. Moreover, despite changes in the Guajiro way of life , she felt she owned her daughters until some man married them by making her a bride payment. Thus , although Blanca had discovered freedom in some areas of her life, the choice of her own sexual projects was evi - dently not among them .

Blanca's awareness of her conflicts and her carefully considered choice of methods to adapt to stress and overcome it , with that final shattering recognition of her own freedom to change the world, seem to. form an u~broken chain in her recollected experience, beginning with her earliest memories and continuing into her adolescence and adult life. At the center is Blanca herself, as we have rendered her , a self-reflective being who is maintaining an identity and whose actions we and she have made to appear internally consistent and meaningful. By the end of the life story recitation Blanca seems to be saying to us: "This is the kind of person I am , and I am the product of my subjec -

2. Once Blanca was hung upside down from the rafters of the house in a car- rymg ?ag for several hours because she talked to a boy and had come home late With the firewood. During her ordeal she had to urinate but her mother was unrelenting. Blanca remembers urinating all over herself, the urine trick- ling down her face and burning her eyes .

96 Interpreting Life Histories

tive interaction with experience, which is, however , sometimes be- yond my control. My life is its own justification. Try to accept this and respond to it as if it were true , even if you cannot privately sus- pend disbelief."

Conclusions

Our goal in understanding Blanca has been to grasp the complexity of her life in its subjective immediacy. To this end we have tried to see the unique character of the subject's phenomenal consciousness as a product of past events, but one nevertheless transmitted in the context of the particular conditions she defined as her ongoing reality. Our un - derstanding of her life, however, is surely not something we have en- tered into directJy from a blank , ahistorical starting point . The process of interpretation by which understanding is achieved presupposes events, conditions, and negotiated meanings: the unfolding dialogue between the ethnographer and the subject; the dialogue between the subject and the translator; the translation process itself; and the dia- logue between all of these parties and the expectant environment that surrounds them and that changes as it moves with them through time. Each of us, in a sense, has been integrated into a common endeavor despite our illusion of control, and each of us in a sense is a prisoner of the meanings he has created with the other. Nonetheless, each seeks to make sense of what is going on in his own way and so each ar- rives at his own eventual understanding after a process of fumbling and groping.

As interpreters of the life history, therefore , we "understand" when, in recreating Blanca dialectically through an act of our own self-under- standing, we grasp her foreignness within our changed horizon. We join Blanca in our own efforts to overcome alienation and to choose a destiny for ourselves according to our authentic interests. This is the self-reflective turn that has brought us to understand how Blanca situ- ated herself in her world, first in the discourse, and later in the final text itself. We have partially succeeded in our interpretive efforts to eliminate Blanca's strangeness by including her in our world , now changed irreversibly through that very encounter.

Much ethnographic research lacks a true feeling for human life as it is subjectively experienced by individuals. We know the richness and complexity of our own inner life , and when we compare this to the

The Subjective World of a Life History 97

many tedious , dehumanizing accounts of life in other cultures (and that includes our work , too), we may feel an acute sense of disinterest and even outright alienation (which is an alienation from ourselves, as well). All too often the real thing seems to get lost in the obfuscation of the investigator playing God with his constructs. Blanca's case is instructive. Her particular Guajiro despair is also our human despair, and her anguish at people's inhumanity and her attempts to think well of herself in a corrupt, vicious world are the very things that impress us about her life , because that is what her life seems really to be say- ing as a subjective truth in addressing us.

We are tempted to turn to the great works of fiction , which are im - bued with the author's thoughts and feelings distilled through the im - mediacy of the creative process into living characters, for insights into the human condition. In The Age of Reason by Jean Paul Sartre (1947), for example, the richness of a man's existential situation is re- vealed as he contemplates his freedom in a world where bad faith and ready -made solutions threaten to snap asunder his will to act and cre- ate his own destiny. Surely this situation is applicable not only to the limited sphere of French existential man: the flow of subjective experi - ence magically recreated by Sartre in this novel cries out for a much fuller measure. To render Blanca and other individuals in the full force of their existential dilemma, as Sartre does in his novel , would be to enlarge in a significant way the explicitly human and concrete dimen- sions of the subject's world and engage the human possibilities of the interpretive endeavor as well. Perhaps it would not be amiss, in con- clus ion , to suggest that the study of the individual in anthropology could benefit by imitating art , by following the artistic and imaginative re-creation that occurs in fiction.