Poverty of the Imagination

The [AAA] Annual Meeting's title,"(Un)Imaginable Futures," is intended to convey a double valence appropriate to both the perils and possibilities of the present historical moment—and of earlier times of transformation. We anticipate sessions on a broad array of topics ranging from violence, warfare, surveillance and human rights discourses to the global commodity flows that link technoscience both to expressive forms ad to future markets. We welcome historical and comparative perspectives on futurism, modernism, anti-modernism, cosmopolitanism and fundamentalism. —Donald Brenneis, President, American Anthropological Association (AAA) —Deborah Heath, 2002 Executive Program Chair Introduction One of the important—even if somewhat utopian—functions of the American Anthropological Association's annual meetings is to offer the possibility of a collective inquiry into the discipline and its forms of knowledge production. Of course, if we attend the meetings, we may or may not choose to accept the invitation to this domain of collective questioning. The theme of this [End Page 111] year's meetings, however, was one that I feel deserves continuing scrutiny, dialogue, and debate. And it is toward this end that I submit these reflections. (Un)Imaginable Futures. Although there is much to question about the entire phrase, I would like to take this opportunity to think closely about one element that is implied within it. (Un)Imaginable harkens to a basic term—the imagination—that seems to have become exceedingly common for anthropology, ever since the publication of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. The commonality of the term within anthropological discourse, I believe, should make us pause. Commonality very easily drifts into self-evidence, and self-evidence toward subtle compulsion. In other words, while we have been other-wise preoccupied (perhaps with debating the relevance of "culture" as a category of analysis), the use of the term "imagination" may well have become part of an emergent anthropological normativity. This compulsory self-evidence, ambiguity, and slippage into normativity signal a problem—at least for me. These qualities signify an absence of explicit discussion (e.g., anthropologists do not seem to be driven to define precisely what the imagination is, or to demonstrate how imagining differs from, for example, thinking, conceiving, conceptualizing, etc.). 1 However, one of the most powerful, and exciting, qualities of anthropological practice is its continual engagement with, and evaluation of, its own epistemological presumptions. The imagination has somehow fallen from the purview of anthropology's modality of self-critique. To open up an inquiry into the viability of the imagination as an analytic category, I would like to offer a close reading of the work of Benedict Anderson. Although Anderson is not single-handedly responsible for the current captivation with the imagination, his work has been an undeniable inspiration. Many scholars have questioned the Andersonian analysis of nationalism (for example, Silverstein 2002). My interest, however, is to explore the limits of Anderson's model of imagination. As the title of this essay suggests, I wish to prompt a rethinking of the privilege that has been accorded this model. In what follows, first, I provide a brief sketch of the imagination within the history of metaphysics. This discussion is meant to be more suggestive than exhaustive. Second, I analyze the position of the imagination within the text of Imagined Communities. Third, I consider the extensions of the original model that Anderson elaborates in his more recent work. This work stages a confrontation between what might be considered old nationalisms and new nationalisms. Anderson, in order to demonstrate what he views as the dangers of new nationalisms, makes reference to Sikhs who support a struggle to create a [End Page 112] sovereign state called Khalistan (Anderson 1992a; 1992b; 1994; 2000). According to this analysis, Sikhs are descibed not merely as an imagined community. The style in which they are said to imagine community is different. These "most uncompromising, fanatical adherents of an independent Khalistan" are not members of a proper nation, according to Anderson. They are emblematic, rather, of a distinctive form of identity, one that...