On being asked to join the drift of voices irregularly heard through the auspices of this Netdynam2.0 web-log I was warned – ah, but the term I am wont to use would be threatened for its entailment of a notional accuracy (‘valeur’ as I believe some might say) in relation to the alternative; however, it became obvious as I toyed with its insertion that the grammar of the two terms is completely different and thus I was diverted down a path of contemplation regarding the very meaning of the term threaten as appropriate for what I was hoping to explain. It is a matter of projection it seems, which alerts us to the nuances of meanings here, rather than a mere casual glance at the lexicon, and the convention which allows us to threaten something (or someone, I admit), but not to warn something directly… which takes us into much too abstract a territory.
At this point, much more appropriate should I return to the example provided by the invitation I received to offer observations through the medium of this web-log - in addition to my other internet presences I hasten to add. To wit, in tandem with my invitation to contribute, I was warned that I should announce my connections at the outset. As you can no doubt see, although I felt that my interlocutor’s intent was more to threaten me not to fail to reveal my connections with her on pain of later upheaval and accusatory rumblings, I could not express this apperception on my part as “I was threatened that I should divulge my interests at the outset”. No – although I felt that her manner of description and explanation were in the way of a threat, the rider here can only be rendered as I was warned that I should divulge my relationship to one of the administrators at the outset lest dire consequences should ensue. As a matter of fact (to be precise it would be better to say, as a matter of conjecture) I am not sure as to the exact nature of these consequences and to whom they might apply. Nonetheless, I am bound by the code of guest-ship, and hence I needs must reveal at this juncture and before indulging in any further contributions in the forum that I have known eldon for some several years past.
It is a matter of record that she earlier invited me to subscribe to this web-log, to which I acquiesced in my usual fashion. Indeed it seems (I cannot remember) that I made an earlier appearance on the virtual stage of the previous incarnation of this discussion space when it was purveyed in electronic discussion list form, at the time we both lived in Japan (I was about to say “inhabited” Japan, but even I was never so large). My peripatetic lifestyle means that I can occasionally still cross paths with eldon, if we manage to time it correctly, and in this instance it is to my own good fortune that eldon now inhabits (along with two cats and a large P) a terrace with 4 bedrooms in Sydney, to which location I regularly return (Sydney that is, not the terrace, since this is the first time i have been in Sydney while eldon has also lived here) to recharge my batteries as the quaint expression goes, and to make sure the country hasn’t gone to the dogs in my absence. And also to make sure they will continue to let me in for the foreseeable future – successive Australian governments evincing populist paranoia making it sometimes extremely difficult for refugees to enter its hallowed grounds having once being invaded by Europeans, this too after being inhabited for hundreds of thousands of years by the now disinherited original owners. I just wrote owners but in fact that is not the best term to use – unfortunately a more apt term like belongers is not part of the English language lexicon.
In any case, the issue attending my regular visits rests on my having been raised in Australian climes, but not having been born here. I have triple citizenship in fact, with the sub-continent being my favourite, perhaps due to its also having been the place of my bursting forth into the light so to speak. During this particular visit to Australian soil I intend to perform some research-induced agenda, and it may even eventuate, attendant on its success or no, that my own permanent removal from the land of infinite pleasure relating to anthropological curiosities may occur as a result.
I am reliably informed by eldon, then, that this web-log needs the services – or at least the contributions – of an anthropologist. In point of actual fact, I like to see myself as an anthro-apologist, but this is a minor aberration which I hope readers will either ignore or celebrate depending on their point of view. As far as the necessity for my services goes, she vouchsafes that the four administrators have occupied several disciplinary niches that should auger well for balance of both opinion and duties, but has observed to me that often-times instead, disciplinary boundaries tend to arise between members and their negotiations over the nature of reality. While I am not in the business of defining reality for anyone else, I am drawn to inspecting and relating in new lights the various representations that different groups attempt to define for themselves in delineating what sections of the cosmos and its knowledge-making facilities they themselves call into being. My own concerns then are outside myself so to speak, and located in groups rather than individuals. Indubitably this definition of my trajectory is simplistic, and yet it will do for the moment as a line along which to align my big toe as I relate (in other words) what eldon wants me to observe, and which in fact I have been desultorily observing since my subscriberhood began.
She (the L-person) has told me that each of the gang of four attached to this particular web-log occupies role and perspective niches in their outlooks, and their approaches to the world, and that they bring this to the discussion after applying their own filters to interpretative ends. My informant has always taken a participant-observer status with respect to the groups she studies, and I respect this stance on her part, and even applaud the work she has done with it, but I am more inclined to stand apart from the cultural practices on which I am interested to comment – not completely, but in the manner of having one foot fully outside the practices of that group whilst I am in any way ‘studying’ it, and at the same time, I endeavour to maintain another foot (or even feet) within that group, under its superstructure, in the bedrock of the community perhaps. In Japan, this has only been achieved by not studying the Japanese themselves, but rather the antics of expats living there. But this is another story.
To return to the matter at hand via this rather circumlocutionary route, eldon claims that her mien is in the way of a sociologist when approaching phenomenon of human behaviour, while hoon takes the role of psychologist. In the case of mike, he is the scientist, while frank occupies a tech-engineer-like persona. All four administrators, eldon believes, are also imbued with artist, and thus there are emotional outbursts (so to speak) and squabbles over aesthetic matters, even when the surface discussion is ostensibly otherwise. The aesthetic, as it will be remembered and no doubt agreed, is not altogether the province of the visual or even the plastic arts, but includes notions regarding beauty and truth (however conceived) relating to sound and music, words and their sequencing, and the sequencing of other elements of experience apart from the usual words, sounds, smells, tastes and graphics – sensations. Although simplification is not my forte, I am willing to extend my head or expose further my neck by saying that aesthetics can be boiled down to (hoping here that no anti-essentialists are reading along to curse me and follow me spitefully on twitter) relationships. Beauty, via this definition, is a not a part of the single act or object, or even a static composition of objects or elements but is imminent in the intricacies of the relationships that obtain between acts and objects, or elements thereof, extending as well to sequences in human interaction and the parts out of which they are composed. Readers jumping ahead will connect this with my anthropological leanings and intuit that they rest on a basis of examining what specific sequences and juxtapositionings constitute a group’s favoured practices, mores and so on, repeated instances, and legitimised, allowed, ratified and lauded sequences of acts or apperceptions of them which in turn realise that group’s “culture”..with, she apologises and accentuates at the same time, scare quotes.
Herein has lain my self introduction. May it please your honours to accept my humble postings from this day forward – although I cannot promise their regularity or appropriate content.
People call me Penelope, Penny for short, in case someone enjoys that sort of information.
