Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan. Berkley: University of California Press
Ethnography is the science that that deals or elaborates about different people and their cultures, including their customs, their daily habits, their similarities as well as their differences in their co-existence. Andrew Shryock is one of the most famous individuals renowned for their zeal and profound work in explaining the cultural anthropology (branch of ethnography concerned with the study of the human culture and its development) of various communities. Among the most celebrated fields of his work includes the Yemen, Jordan (which is the field of interest in this study), Arab as well as Muslim communities. It would be Knowledgeable to say that his research or fieldwork has been oriented towards the Middle East region, particularly the Muslim community.
Shryock’s work has focused more on the history, the traditions, the relations as well as the modernity of various ethnic groups focusing on the political and socio-cultural beliefs making his work on the best sources of ancient anthropology and a reference point of research work on related topics. Another field of his interest has been studying about ethnicity and the cultural relations in the American communities focusing on politics and community relations as an influence of culture and its effects. His work is open to public opinion, and his research work is driven by the value addiction of openness and sharing information by the local community. He has been known as the mediator of the past, recent and the tomorrow as he tries to compare the outcome of culture from the past, what is happening now and a prediction of how tomorrow shall hold its traditional and cultural beliefs.
As an appreciation for his work, Shryock has been awarded severally for the enthusiastic efforts in his work;
- 2011 John Dewey Teaching Award
- 2007 Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship
- 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
- 2002 Fellow, Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences
- 1997 The Albert Hourani Book Award (Middle East Studies Association) for Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination
- 1995 Member, Institute for Advanced Study.
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His work in the book “Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal” has a diverse understanding of how the spirit of nationalism is manifested through the process of keeping information’s about the genealogy of certain communities. The study is an important piece of information about how the people of Jordan have been able to keep a very key or important piece of information about their genealogy and their bloodlines as a tool to promote nationality, idealism, and patriotism in the communities and nations at large. The information’s given in the above study shows how the various methods have influenced the passing of information from generation to generation in order to keep the virtues and venerations of various communities.
The critical methods, as explained in the study, are the Oral traditions of passing information and the textual methodologies (written artifacts) as described. These are the critical basis of the information shared in the study, how they have been influencing the culture and beliefs and how they have been passed from generation to generation offer an exceptional understanding of the subject matter at large. The contrast on the relevance and the originality of this information is also elucidated in the study with significant dialogues and interviews performed by the author as a way of authenticating the information collected and written in the book.
Oral History (Oral traditions of keeping history)
Oral traditions or mode of keeping information has been used for centuries to help pass data from one generation to another. The line or the theme of the study was to study how the genealogy and the nationalism of the people of Jordan were known to the people. It came apparent that most of the people, especially the old generation, believed in the oral methods of information keeping. Just like any other community in the world, the society living in the Jordan area has strict preservation of how the information would be passed from one generation to another without breaking the chain or losing valuable information. The chain is tight, and it is strictly followed to ensure, their ethnicity is never forgotten. A discussion of the various oral tradition methods will be discussed, and later a weigh of the strengths and the weakness of the same outline.
Among the most used and mentioned oral methods of keeping the genealogy and nationalistic information among these tribes is the use of poems and related reciting’s. A poem is specially designed by an expert through compressing full information into short and relevant bits, which can be learned, memorized, and uttered through citations by the target groups. In most cases, the group that carries the burden of reciting these particular poems are the children and the women. Any child should be able to describe the genealogy of their bloodline from the first member of the community to the current head of the family i.e., the father. Also, for the spirit of nationalism to be installed in the hearts of the children, the famous political leaders and influential persons in the community e.g., were seen as a passage of information that was considered helpful to the community and had to be memorized. The strictness in this could be seen by the communities setting up communal competitions to see which family was best in practice. Also, they could be recited during special occasions e.g., war times or when the community needed help from the ancestors in times of hunger or diseases epidemics.it was typical for the whole community to recite some of these traditions in religious gatherings or when blessing the younger generations or warriors before going war. Poems were and are still an essential part of information keeping when it comes to genealogy and nationalism of particular communities.
The artistry of song making was among the leading jobs in the traditional Jordan society and was considered sacred and highly adored. The talent or skill of making songs was and has not been mounted too many. The chosen few who were adored with the job had a duty of using their skills to incorporate the theme of genealogy and nationalism in the songs. Days were spent with the singers practicing on how to fit these songs well and spread them in the community and to the relevant people. Their power in songs and the spirit of a song can perform miraculous deeds through imparting positive or negative information. With this factor considered, wise words were used in the songs, and the corrector designated information would be shared using the appropriate knowledge.
Different songs would be practiced by different genders, age sets, or age groups e.g.; children would practice both nationalistic and genealogy songs while men and warriors would focus on nationalistic songs that would lit their spirit of defense, patriotism, and pride in the community. Women would help the children practice and sing during ceremonials. The same has been reflected in today’s world with countries and nations preparing their younger generations and soldiers with national songs, and poetic reciting’s that would instill the spirit of nationalism and patriotism. The oral tradition has been combined with the text tradition with thousands of poems and songs written down from generation to generation and kept safe for future referencing from different cultures.
In one of his interviews in the study, Shryock gets in a close conversation with a significant person in the Jordan community as far as history keeping was concerned. The old man had been acting as the Chief in charge of “storytelling” .i know it sounds like a joke, but this person was very crucial in keeping the history of a community in the ancient times. The history of society would be equally be maintained by the storytellers who would incorporate the nationalistic deeds and the genealogy reports in their stories. Sometimes, the stories would be made of how a certain hero fought for the community or solved an absolute calamity that befell. With this, you could hear some families boosting how they came from a genealogy of warriors, healers, or religious leaders.
The same would be done for those who showed nationalistic actions. Even during the modern times, the works of storytellers continue to manifest through the various literature books we read. The stories of how confident political leaders in ancient communities fought and won wars were printed in the minds of storytellers and narrated to generations who would also pass the same stories to the next generations. Most of the traditional societies had no writing skills, but the deeds of various people would be written down in the brain through memorizing the critical parts of the story and then narrated to children or the ones selected to pass the information through storytelling.
Sometimes, each family would select an elder who would memorize the genealogy of the community. When the elder grew old and began to lose memory, due to old age, they should have already passed the information to the next storyteller in the family. In the case of a pandemic e.g., the storyteller died of diseases; another storyteller would be selected and be trained in the skill of storytelling. Sometimes, the community would just mandate the older adults to tell the stories to the children during certain times of the day e.g., in the evening while waiting for the food to be cooked.
The most important person who was considered sacred and divine in terms of knowing the genealogy reports as well as the nationalism issues was the community leader. The community leaders were considered among the wisest and most knowledgeable people in the community. They knew each family head and the genealogy of almost all the families. Sometimes, these were healers or religious leaders’ e.g., Jordan societies are more religious and would have prime age that would come as an advantage in understanding these matters. Sometimes, this information would be very helpful to determine some genetic variations in certain family’s e.g., mental health or physical challenges that were crucial when marriage was to be conducted.it would be unwise for a couple from families with mental illness to marry. Genetics state that there are high chances that the child born by the couple would have psychological problems. These are some of the duties that these people were mandated with and not just keeping the story and narrating it; the relevance of the story was crucial and could be used to solve some issues in the community.
To strengthen the knowledge of history keeping, the various communities in the Jordan region would organize for competitions. The best cities to produce the best songwriters, poets, and storytellers would be considered the best in keeping and promoting the history of the community. This showed how important it was considered and the relevant people respected in the community. The passage of information was considered a rite, and sometimes, rituals would be conducted e.g., circumcision and certain historical details are given to the young men on nationalism at those instances.
It is real and confirmed that oral traditions were the earliest forms of information passing and gave birth to the textual formalities at later ages when man realized that written information would be more reliable than the one given orally. Oral tradition is still being practiced today in the Jordan societies with the various modes of transmitting information still being used. The mirage of this reflects not only the way oral traditions were conducted in this particular area of study but also to the entire world. Another careful field study that would be appropriate and would boost the research further would be the African oral traditions, just to add a note for people who would still be interested in expounding the work done by Shryock.
Textual authority as a mode of communicating nationalistic and genealogical imagination
Most of the history we learn today was recorded in unique books or instruments made by man in order to help pass useful information. The history of nationalism and genealogy has also been put down in writing with different thematic areas of interest that are clearly outlined and explained. Among the various writing modes used in the passing on nationalistic and genealogy information includes; scrolls, religious books, written stone tablets as well as traditional paintings.
Scrolls were textual paper writings that were used by the first writers, probably the scribes. Scrolls carry most of ancient history. In the Jordan community, Shryock got in touch with several traditional leaders who directed him to various manuscripts, which would help him in the quest do discover the history of the Jordan p[, people, as far as genealogy was concerned. Among these leaders was Muhammad Hamdan, who had tried to consolidate information on the genealogy of the Adwani clans and kept the information correctly for use by the tribal people only. The information contained in the scrolls tries to show how the earliest civilization was keen on maintaining information once they discovered it could be used for future references.
Religious books are among the earliest scrolls that could later be converted into modern books for the purpose of worship.in his quest for information, Shryock discovers that the religious Jordan communities had strong bonds to their religions because of the genealogy information contained in their religious books.it could be clearly seen that the genealogy information contained in the religious books was directly related to some tribes and families in the Jordan society. The same could be mentioned when it came to acts on nationality e.g., traditional wars against other religions or inter-tribe wars. Religious information on nationalism and genealogy could be well confirmed in the Quran and the Holy Bible books for both Muslims and Christians, respectively.
The earliest form of writings were stone tablets and paintings. Though not much information is contained in these two on genealogy, the ones available show the acts of nationalism, and few include the pictures which could be depicted belonging to some tribes. However, this indicates that traditional society cared about keeping history and was reluctant to find ways to store this valuable information.
Comparison and contrast between these methods of information keeping
The oral traditions might contain information that was just made up. It has no proof of its authenticity. Sometimes, the information could be exaggerated to help make certain characters more heroic. In the book, Shryoch contrasts with some characters disapproving of the information given. Some of the information in oral traditions might have been lost when transferring from one generation to another. Basically, the oral tradition lacks authenticity, and many people do not believe in it.
Textual writings contain shallow information, only a few centuries old. Others succumb to secure destruction if not stored well. The information contained in some books was once oral and lacked authenticity. Unlike the verbal report, the written texts last longer, and the information cannot be exaggerated or lost once written.
Despite all the shortcomings, these two form the earliest and best tools in acquiring information on nationalism and genealogy, as mentioned by Shryock.
References
Shryock, Andrew 1997 Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination. Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan. Berkeley: University of California Press