The ‘I’ in ink: writing as a ‘technology of the self’
Writing is a technology
According to Walter J. Ong, the status of writing as a technology is irrefutable. ‘Writing’, he states, ‘…is a technology, calling forth the use of tools and other equipments: styli or brushes or pens, carefully prepared surfaces such as paper, animal skins, strips of wood, as well as inks or paint, and much more’ (Ong. 1982, in Neef. 2011 (2008): 93).
Ong’s statement comes in response to the common use of the term ‘technology’ as associated with mechanical or electrical tools: ‘we find it difficult to consider writing to be a technology as we commonly assume printing and the computer to be’ (Ong, 1982: 81). In this essay, I will go beyond Ong’s implement-focussed definition of ‘technology’ to investigate the extent to which writing may be considered as a ‘technology of the self’. Drawing from Mauss, Foucault, Ingold, Mbodj-Pouye, Malinowski and others, I will argue that writing is becomes a ‘technology of the self’ only when viewed as a practice, and make a case for the importance of this perception in the discipline of anthropology.
Techniques of the Body, Techniques of the Self
The notion of a ‘technology of the self’ is related to Mauss’s paper Techniques of the Body, initially presented as lecture given at the Société de Psychologie in 1934. Here, he defines technique as ‘an action which is effective and traditional’ (Mauss, 1973: 75). To condense Mauss’s later elaboration, this means that the person conducting the action does so with an aim in view (effective), and that it has been learned (traditional). Mauss looks at physical actions across cultures and concludes that many that we consider to be ‘natural’ are in fact ‘techniques of the body’, ‘assembled not by the individual himself but by his education, by the whole society to which he belongs, in the place he occupies in it’ (Mauss, 1973: 76). The use of the body, from swimming to sleeping, and both with and without ‘instruments’, is learned through imitation and practice. Thus, the body can be incorporated into the vernacular consideration of technology as relating to ‘tools and equipments’ (Ong, 1982 in Neef. 2011 (2008): 93) as ‘man’s first and most natural instrument’ (Mauss, 1975: 75).
Writing can easily be aligned with Mauss’s ‘techniques of the body’. Barton and Papen, in their edited volume The Anthropology of Writing describe it as ‘created by people and…passed on culturally’. Returning to Ong, writing is seen as the ‘shaping of a tool to oneself’ (Ong, 1982: 83) and the effect of this shaping to create a ‘deeply interiorized technology’ (ibid.). Ong also quotes the mediaeval writer Orderic Vitalis, who wrote that in writing, ‘the whole body labours’ (Ong, 1982:95).
Yet to consider the extent to which writing is a ‘technology of the self’, we must delve into Foucault’s coining of the term and his characterization of ‘four major types of… “technologies”’ (Foucault, 1988). These are:
‘(1) technologies of production, which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivizing of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection or immortality’ (Foucault, 1988)
In exemplifying and delineating ‘technologies of the self’, Foucault draws on a selection of classical and early Christian writers and philosophers. He describes the development of technologies of the self through the Greek practices ‘constituted as epimelesthai sautou, “to take care of yourself”’ (Foucault, 1988). ‘By the Hellenistic age’, he states, ‘taking care of oneself became linked to a constant writing activity’ (Foucault, 1988). Through the Stoics and later Christian philosophy, Foucault identifies the role of writing as a constituent part of various ‘technologies of the self’, such as askesis, which involve disclosure of the self, and meditation on one’s own actions and thoughts. The reflection involved in these technologies, argues Foucault, is directed to self-led transformation towards perfection. The identification of a ‘technology of the self’ is useful to anthropologists as when a technology is interpreted as such, it reveals the ideals and norms of the society being studied.
Despite the clear importance of writing in the ‘technologies of the self’ that Foucault mentions, we cannot assume that writing itself is a ‘technology of the self’. In order to establish the extent to which writing can be considered a ‘technology of the self’, I will draw from a number of historical and ethnographic examples.
German ‘Kurrent’: a script to create a nation
Kurrent. Source: http://www.houseind.com
Neef’s history of the German script ‘Kurrent’, the handwritten cousin to the more famous printed ‘Fraktur’ or blackletter, shows the relation of writing to a number of Foucault’s technologies. The Kurrentschrift was a ‘cursive script designed for a (pre-)national time in the 16th century’(Neef, 2011: 99) which came to signify and embody ‘German culture – under the Kaisers as well as under the Nazis’ (Neef, 2011: 104). Those involved in developing the script, which was taught as the standard in schools in unified Germany in the early years of the 20th century, saw its use as instrumental in the reproduction of and innovation within German ‘culture’, and the interiorisation of ‘Germanness’. Acknowledging these perspectives, Kurrentschift may be seen as a technology of production, a technology of sign systems, and a technology of power.
By looking at the actual practice of the Kurrentschift, however, more is revealed about the technology of the script. Hemann Dietlein, an educator and reformer of the Kurrentschrift, wrote in 1856 that:
‘The nature of our nation is clearly reflected in the German Kurrent. Our script has not been conditioned, formed and shaped by great trade and transformation, but rather by the profound study of sciences and arts… It is therefore a script of scholars…since it lends itself more than any other to speed writing’ (Dietlein, 1856, in Neef, 2011:101)
Here, Dietlein focuses on actual practice of writing as a method of actualizing scientific and artistic thought. The core to his teaching method was mastery over the script through the practice of movement: ‘Dietlein recommends that, along with the finger and hand movements forming the basic strokes of the script, one should, right from the start, also practice the locomotion of the arm tending towards the right’ (Neef, 2011: 102). Through this, writing would become ‘rhythmic and flowing’ (Neef, 2011: 103), allowing the writer to effortlessly join mind to page in meaning. For Dietlein, optimizing the form of the Kurrentschrift for speed and accuracy was key to achieving scholarship, and thus, the script itself can be viewed as a transformative ‘technology of the self’.
The flow of the pen
Neef writes often of the ductus, ‘the ‘movement’ of the hand leading a pen’ (Neef, 2011:18), and the effect that different writing implements and inks can have on this, from the flowing reservoir of the fountain pen and its ability to ‘disseminate the aura of writing’ (Neef, 2012: 120), to the stilted paste-ink of the biro, which ‘does not release a stream…[and] does not give of itself’ (Neef, 2011:121).
In Neef’s view, the writing implement and the person become fused; mind and material are condensed at the nip of the pen, leaving a ‘trace’ of thought. This notion complements Ingold’s investigation into the ‘textility of making’ (Ingold, 2010). Ingold references Deleuze and Guattari’s assertion that our encounters with the world always find ‘matter in movement’, a ‘matter-flow [that] can only be followed’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004: 451, in Ingold, 2010: 94). With this in mind, he argues, our perception of the world, and thus our studies of it, should discard the notion of ‘objects’, and ‘follow the materials’ (Ingold, 2010: 94). ‘A human being is not a being that acts – an agent – but a ‘hive of activity’, energized by the flows of materials’ (Ingold, 20120: 96). In Ingold’s view, the final form of a ‘thing’, shaped through technique or technology, ‘is death’, while ‘form-giving is life’ (Ingold, 2010: 92). To properly understand a thing, or a technology, it must be viewed in action.
Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali
We can draw on the ideas of Ingold and Neef in the analysis of various studies of writing, sucha as Mbodj-Pouye’s ethnographic essay, Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali: A Practice in the Making (2010). In her paper, Mbodj-Pouye traces some of reasons which have led to the development of this practice, and the ways in which it is manifested. Combining interview with an analysis of the layout and content of the notebooks, she argues that their prior use in schooling and professional contexts has a great degree of influence over their form and usage (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010:138). Among her informants, she states, ‘the practice of notebook-keeping for one’s own purposes draws on distinct habits, taken from school and developed in professional settings’ (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010:139) leading the notebook to be perceived as a ‘means of control’ (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010:138).
What Mbodj-Pouye sees as important is the notebook as a ‘codex’ (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010:140), an ‘assemblage of sheets’ which keeps notes together that many be disparate in both time and genre. ‘The common point of the entries is that they are related to the writer without implying self-examination. Keeping a personal notebook appears to be a way of setting aside some personal information and thoughts’ (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010: 141). In this sense, the notebook in rural Mali may be considered as an analogue to the hupomnemata, a Classical ‘technology of the self’ which Foucault describes simply as ‘a material record of things read, heard and thought’. In the hupomnemata, just as in the notebooks Mbodj-Pouye studies, ‘the intent is not to pursue the unspeakable, not reveal the hidden, nor say the unsaid’ (Foucault, 1997).
However, where Foucault considers the practice of writing hupomnemata as a way of collecting disparate thoughts and recollections in order to establish ‘a relationship of oneself to oneself’ (Foucault, 1997), Mbodj-Pouye asserts that the keeping of a notebook in rural Mali is ‘a way of objectifying the existence of a domain ‘of one’s own’ which is not given as such in contemporary rural Mali’ (Mbodj-Pouye, 2010: 141). Here, it seems, the notebook in rural Mali is not a technology of the self, but a technology of power: the creation of a domain subject the person writing.
The difference between the hupomnemata as a technology of the self and the notebook as a technology of power may appear as a cultural one. In reality, however, it is a result of Mbodj-Pouye’s assumption of the notebook as an object that exists prior to and after writing. For Mbodj-Pouye, unlike Ingold’s view, the notebook is not a material with which a person interacts to produce writing, but a container for thoughts or experiences to be written. Mbodj-Pouye is not wrong in this analysis, as the technique she considers is not writing, but the ‘keeping [of] a notebook’. What is revealed to us here is that it is only when considered as a practice that writing can be considered as a ‘technology of the self’.
Malinowski’s diary: a technology of the self
Writing as an object, then, can serve to obscure its use as a ‘technology of the self’. To use another example, we may consider that it is largely due to its existence as a physical and ‘finished’ book that Malinowski’s Diary in the Strict Sense of the Word has gained in infamy since its posthumous publication in 1967. Francis Hsu (1979) draws out many of the most distasteful and offensive passages of the diary, in which Malinowski demonstrates a feeling of superiority to the ‘n****rs’ hosting him(Malinowski, 1967, in Hsu, 1979: 519) through an unwillingness to converse with them as equals (Malinowski, 1967:272 in Hsu, 1979: 519) and lecherous disregard for the women (Malinowski, 1967:255 in Hsu, 1979: 519). The physical writing, in these cases, can be interpreted as a use of the diary by Malinowski as a ‘technology of power’ to justify his ‘objectivizing’ (Foucault, 1988) of the Trobriand islanders. In turn, the diary is then used by Hsu and others in the same way: as a ‘technology of power’ in the objectivizing of Malinowski for analysis.
When considering the diary in its entirety, however, it’s clear that Malinowski intended it as a method of ‘training [him]self’ (Malinowksi, 1967: 130). Rapport relates Malinowski’s desire to use the diary as ‘a means of self-analysis’ through ‘conversing with himself’ (Malinowski, in Rapport 1990:6). Writing the diary was a ‘matter of course’, that helped to ‘eliminate elements of worry’ (ibid.:175) from Malinowski’s work, and which led him to continue in the development of theory (ibid.: 114) throughout his fieldwork. Returning to Foucault, we may see Malinowski’s diary as an hupomnemata which allowed him to ‘gather…in’ (Foucault, 1997) his thoughts in the field and ‘transform the thing seen or heard “into tissue and blood”’ (ibid.) for continuous analysis. Elsewhere, Malinowski discloses his both his ideas and faults as a form of exomologesis, ‘a dramatic expression of the situation of the penitent as sinner which makes manifest his status as sinner’ (Foucault, 1988), using the diary in ‘the taming of my lusts, the elimination of lecherousness’ (Malinowski, 1967, in Rapport, 1990:6). While no apology can be made for Malinowski’s clear prejudice against those he was studying, it is apparent once again that it is only through analyzing writing as a practice that it is revealed as a ‘technology of the self’.
Through the examples included in this essay, it is revealed that writing, once completed, attracts the label of a ‘technology of power’, and while I do not go into it here, it may also be seen as a ‘technology of production’ and a ‘technology of sign systems’. However, when considered as a practice, writing appears to be a ‘technology of the self’, whether leading the individual towards a national or social ideal (as in the Kurrentschrift), or to a personal one (as in Malinowski’s diary). Once this interpretation is allowed, it becomes possible to think more deeply on the writing as a trace of the social norms and ideals that its practitioners strive towards, opening up a wealth of data for the anthropologist.
Bibliography
Barton, D. and Papen, U. 2011. “What is the Anthopology of Writing?”, in The Anthropology of Writing. Barton and Papen (eds.). London: Continuum Books
Foucault, M. 1997. “Self Writing”. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Paul Rabinow and Robert Hurley (eds.) New York: New Press
Foucault, M. 1988. “Technologies of the Self” in Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Martin, L.H et al. (eds.). London: Tavistock
Hsu, F. 1979. “The Cultural Problem of the Cultural Anthropologist”. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 81, No. 3 pp. 517-532
Ingold, T. 2010. “The textility of making”. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34, pp. 91-102
Malinowski, B. 1967. A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Mauss, M. 1973. “Techniques of the body”, Economy and Society, 2:1 pp. 70-88
Mbodj-Pouye, A. 2008. “Writing the self through the Other’s language? An ethnographic analysis of notebooks kept in rural Mali”. Paper presented at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, November 13th-16th, 2008
Mbodj-Pouye, A. 2011. “Keeping a Notebook in Rural Mali: A Practice in the Making’, in The Anthropology of Writing. Barton and Papen (eds.). London: Continuum Books
Neef, S. 2011. Imprint and Trace: Handwriting in the age of Technology. London: Reaktion Books
Ong, W. 1982. Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. London: Methuen
Rapport, N. 1990. “Surely Everything Has Already Been Said About Malinowksi’s Diary!” Anthropology Today, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 5-9
Somaesthesia 