Collecting is about taking possession of the
 world, an exercise in how to make it one’s
 own, says James Clifford. He refers to the
 accumulation of material objects and to the
 collecting of exotic, curious, rare things that
 museum curators, philatelists, and art-lovers
 dedicate themselves to. Collecting, however,
 is not merely a pastime of an affluent elite.
 Comparative hunter-gatherer studies indicate
 that gathering serves to create an
 existential space of freedom – even in contexts
 where gathering appears primarily a
 subsistence activity. Gathering puts time and
 the social at play. It supports an escape from
 the workings of time and from the bonds of
 social relations and institutions that persist
 through time mediated by exchanges of
 objects. The article considers the trajectories
 of hunter-gatherer research and some of its
 results. It also points to its recent calling
 into question some of the fundamental
 assumptions on which the research has
 been based. Hunter-gatherer society, after
 all, may not be as distinct from other types
 of society as previously believed. This
 allows recognition that cultural phenomena
 previously considered distinct features
 of hunter-gatherer society figure equally
 in other types of society. Indeed, features
 known as “immediate return” or “demand
 sharing” and even “living in the present”
 may be adaptive forms of exchange and
 perception constituted at the interface of
 different – complex and less complex – types
 of social systems. These features then, are
 not special forms of exchange and ideology
 characteristic of hunter-gatherers seen as a
 model of pristine human life in groups. They
 are social strategies that sustain the survival
 of marginalized groups in contemporary
 societies. Indeed, “living in the present” and
 exchange in the form of “immediate return”
 or “sharing” helps encapsulated systems
 at the margins successfully escape total
 incorporation into surrounding, dominant,
 systems. A case in point is that of the Pajonal
 Ashéninka in the Peruvian Amazon where
 gathering is a necessary supplement to
 horticulture while simultaneously being considered
 a leisure activity by the Ashéninka
 themselves. From the point of view of the
 capitalist economy, this capacity of the
 Ashéninka to sustain themselves “from
 nothing” is an advantage in that it allows their
 being hired by local settlers for contract labor
 at very low costs to the employer. Gathering
 in this context helps the Ashéninka remain
 a relatively autonomous – and marginalized
 – indigenous group. At the same time, their
 availability as cheap reserve labor sustains
 a marginal form of capitalist production, in
 this case cattle-ranching in the rain forest,
 that threatens and gradually appropriates the
 resources on which the Ashéninka depend.
 Marginalized groups, be they Amazonian
 Indians, London prostitutes, Hungarian
 Gypsies, or Aegean Greek peasants may
 be shown to exhibit similar features of
 orientation to the present, a quasi-ritual space
 outside of durational time. They all appear to
 take a “natural” abundance for granted and
 to forage for their subsistence. They develop
 modes of life oriented towards the present
 and see no need to store for the future. In
 this way the structural insecurity that is part
 and parcel of their marginalized condition
 is transformed into an active focus on a
 celebration of immediate consumption in the
 present. The marginalized may experience
 themselves as free and autonomous people
 to whom freedom from material possessions
 and disengagement from institutions that
 organize long-term social reproduction is
 an existential choice. The marginalized
 position, and the particular form of identity
 it allows, however, is peculiarly vulnerable
 to appropriation by others. Despite the
 appearance of an autonomous way of life, it
 is hardly an independent social phenomenon.
 Rather, it is a product as much as the object of
 a dual process of incorporation and marginalization.
 In the end, the really interesting
 question concerns the role of an orientation
 towards the present tied to specific behavior
 in any type of society in particular limited
 contexts, be they gathering for subsistence,
 shopping for fun, scavenging, collecting
 beautiful art, or gathering rare sightings
 of birds as a leisure time devotion. These
 forms of behavior are rarely experienced
 as economic activity. Rather they are seen
 as forms of pleasure and fun, modes of
 taking possession of the world. They signal
 freedom of choice – yet, an imagined freedom.
 “Gathering” in whatever form it
 takes always involves substance, material
 items, that subsequently will be arranged,
 distributed or consumed. As an act of
 dealing with something that endures beyond
 its experience by the practitioner, gathering
 is a good place to unite loose objects, ends,
 perceptions and research interests.
Read full abstract
May 25, 2016
Janet E Geyer + 2
Open Access