Clifford, James. " Travelling Cultures". In Cultural Studies.

Ed. Grossberg et all. New York: Routledge, 1992. 96- 116.

(by V V)

Clifford's essay suggests "a comparative cultural studies approach

to specific histories, tactics, everyday practices of dwelling and
travelling: traveling-in-dwelling and dwelling-in-traveling" (108).
He discusses anthropology and its problems in defining culture as
his main argument is that the "field" is always traversed by
differences, i.e. the mobility of ideas and peoples.

The anthropological encounters with an "informant" ( either

defined as a "native" or "traveler", or both) become the starting
point of the argument. Anthropologists have strategies of
localization which inevitably raise questions who is "local"? who is
being observed? who determines the lines as well as the insiders
and outsiders? Clifford defends the idea that there is a difference
between the "field" and the "village". The latter was " a
manageable unit" , offering a centralized research practice, and
served as a synecdoche, i.e. a part representing the "cultural"
whole (98). By contrast, the field proposes that complex cultural
objects and activities cannot be temporarily and spatially
bounded. Thus, anthropologists face up problems of language and
translation ,and above all, traveling and mobility. At the same
time, the field, defined as above, excludes many ethnographic
patterns: national government, the capital city, means of
transportation, translation. Therefore, Clifford suggests a
transition from the singular to the plural - deal with people as
they are exceptional (singular) - rather than defining the field (the
plural) first.

How are spaces traversed from outside? The author gives an

example with Hawaiian musicians who trully represent, viewing
culture along with tradition and national identity in terms of travel
relations. Culture as travel becomes essential as we see how
people leave home and return, enacting "interconnected
cosmopolitanisms". Nowadays, culture is observed as traversed
by tourists, radio, television. It surely connects with concepts as
consumption and globalization.

Clifford directs our attention to a frame for negative and positive

visions of travel. The first linked to superficiality, tourism, exile
and the latter to exploration, research, escape. He says that
"people may choose to limit their mobility" versus the ones being
kept " in their place" by repressed forces (103). Similarly,
europeans moved with comfort and safety while servants of
Victorian bourgeois, West Africans going to Paris banlieu or
imigrants were constrained. Therefore, it is hard to determine the
cultural relations of people who traveled without privilege. Clifford
concludes that " travelers move about under strong cultural,
political, and economic compulsions and that certain travelers are
materially priviliged, other oppressed...Travel, in this view,
denotes a range of material, spatial practices that produce
knowledge, stories, traditions, music, books, diaries, and other
cultural expressions" (108).

The author uses "travel" as a translation term because of its class,

gender, race associations and because in the process of
translation itself one can learn a lot about peoples, cultures,
histories different from one's own.