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Gesture studies and anthropological
perspectives
An introduction
Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
University of Cape Town |CIESAS, Mexico
This contribution is the introduction for the special issue of Gesture entitled
“Anthropology of Gesture”. As such, it raises two main questions: how do
gestures contribute to the eld of anthropology? And, inversely, how
anthropology can improve our understanding of gesture and gestural
behaviours? Of particular importance for this special issue, is the emphasis
on what Lempert called “the anthropological sensibility” which aims at tak-
ing a more cultural and ethnographic approach to the study of gesture, espe-
cially but not only in cross-cultural contexts. The last part of this
introduction presents all the contributions of this special issue.
Keywords: gesture, anthropology, ethnographic method, anthropological
sensibility
Gesture and Diversity was the theme of the th international conference of the
International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) held in Cape Town in . The
conference included a special focus on the anthropology of gesture. The aim was
to explore how anthropological approaches can contribute to the eld of ges-
ture studies and what a renewed focus on gesture might bring to the discipline
of anthropology. As part of the Gesture and Diversity theme, we also encouraged
papers on gesture in understudied cultures especially from the global south as well
as research on animal communication and culture.
We understand an anthropological approach to be one that takes gesturing
in natural contexts of use as its primary object of study. It involves connecting
the nature of gestures, patterns of use, relationship to other modalities, and their
communicative, interactive and social functions with interactional context as
well as local and wider social relations and cultural practices of a speech com-
munity.
https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.00040.bro
Gesture 18:2/3 (2019), pp. 119–141. issn 1568-1475 |e‑issn 1569-9773
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Such an approach may be useful in answering important questions about
gesture. For example, why are gestures more prominent in some communities
than others? Why would certain forms and meanings of gesture become part of
an established repertoire in one group and not another? If gesture is integral to
speech and thought, why do people not gesture all the time? How and why does
gesture use vary across communicative situations and speech communities? What
are the roles of social-cultural, bodily, symbolic and cognitive processes in shap-
ing gestural communication, and how do they intersect? What can an anthropo-
logical approach to gesture reveal about human universals, human variation and
the origin of language? Can an anthropological approach to communication in
other hominids reveal how social organization impacts gesture? Obviously, not all
these questions can be addressed in this special issue. However, we hope that this
contribution will stimulate further discussion and research on how anthropolog-
ical approaches can address these and other questions.
Anthropological approaches in gesture studies
The core components of the anthropological method are “human variation both
diachronic and synchronic; its insistence on naturalistic rather than experimental
research design; and its integrative sensibility that situates human behaviour in
relation to an expansive sociocultural context” (Lempert, this volume). All of
these aspects have been present in gesture studies to some degree. Variation has
been an important focus as has the impact of interaction on the nature of gestures
and gestural behaviour. As visual recording has become easier and widely accessi-
ble, we see more extensive and systematic use and analysis of spontaneous natural
data in gesture studies. However, the impact of social organisation, culture and
environment has had somewhat less attention. Although most studies of gesture
are not anthropological in the strict sense, those that include some of these com-
ponents can be described as employing ‘an anthropological sensibility’ to gestures
(Lempert, this volume).
Perhaps the earliest systematic description of gestural variation is Efron’s (
[]) comparison of Jewish and Italian immigrants to New York. His study
described how gestural behaviour diered between the two ethnic groups and
also changed with successive generations demonstrating that gesture was not
innate but shaped by socio-cultural environments. However, Efron did not sys-
tematically examine the social and cultural factors that may have shaped dierent
patterns of gestural behaviour.
An interest in variation also arose from studies of emblems or quotable ges-
tures (gestures that have established form/meaning associations) that showed
120 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
these types of gestures varied across dierent language communities (see Brookes,
; Kendon, ; Payrato, , for comprehensive lists from the s
onwards). While comparative studies showed that quotable gestural vocabularies
diered (Creider, ; Saitz & Cervenka, ; Meo-Zilio and Mejía, ;
Morris et al., ), they also revealed that some gestural forms such as types of
pointing and interpersonal regulatory gestures like armation and negation were
sometimes shared across dierent cultures (see Kendon, , for an overview).
These similarities raised questions as to whether similar gestures be because of
similar cultural contexts, gestural diusion or due to universal origins in common
physical actions. Kendon’s () comparison of six repertoires of quotable ges-
tures from ve countries showed that the majority of quotable gestures covered
similar functional domains such as interpersonal regulation (commands and
insults), expressions of current states of aairs, and comments about others. How-
ever, Kendon () points out that these functional similarities still did not
explain why some meanings become expressed in gesture to the point where they
become part of an explicit and established repertoire in some societies but not in
others. To explain this kind of variation would require comprehensive “context-
of-use” studies (Kendon, , p.), thus a more ethnographic and anthropo-
logical sensibility.
Variation has been a central issue in studies of co-speech gestures. Attention
has been paid to how semantic and structural features of spoken language inu-
ence information conveyed in gesture and where gestures occur in relation to
speech. For example, studies on the expression of manner and path explain the
semantic content and occurrence of gestures in terms of dierences between verb
and satellite framed languages in how they encode manner and path semantically
and structurally (see for instance Brown & Gullberg, ; Kita & Özyürek, ;
Stam, ). Other studies show how the occurrence and timing of gestures and
gesture phrases may dier depending on the syntactic and discursive structure
of the language (Dena, ; Duncan et al., ; Kita et al., ; McNeill &
Duncan, ).
Studies on the expression of direction, space and time have also shown how
spoken expression may inuence the way in which gestures express these con-
cepts. For example, Haviland (, ) demonstrated how cardinal directions
that are expressed in lexical roots in Guugu Yimithirr and other Australian lan-
guages are also expressed in gestural depictions of space, location and direction.
Similarly, Núñez and Sweetser (), exploring conceptual systems and their
gestural expression, looked at how the Aymara language construes time in terms
of space. Among Aymara speakers, in both spoken and gestural expression, the
future is behind the speaker and the past in front. While gesture reects spatially
the metaphorical expression of time in speech, the authors also consider how
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 121
this concept of time might be shaped by bodily experience and culture. Given
this case, they question the universality of translating bodily-grounded experience
directly into gesture and suggest that culture may mediate the emergence of this
dierent pattern.
Spoken language and cognitive factors only partially explain gestural expres-
sion. Bodily experience and cultural factors also play a role (Eneld, ; Kita,
; Le Guen, ; Le Guen & Pool Balam, ). As we will see in this special
issue, Haviland (this volume) shows that the linkage between spoken language,
bodily experience and cultural practices may be far more complex and subject
to changing frames of reference within interactions, while simultaneously being
inuenced by language contact, cultural practices and environment.
Although co-speech gestures may dier as a function of linguistic and concep-
tual dierences, recent research shows that there are also some commonly shared
co-speech gestural forms across language communities (Gawne, ; Ladewig,
a). These forms oen appear to have pragmatic functions such as holding
the palm up towards an interlocutor when asking a question or giving infor-
mation (Cooperrider, Abner, et al., ; Loon, ; Müller, ). This Open
Hand Supine form can be used in a range of situations when presenting or receiv-
ing information (see Kendon’s analysis). Similarly, a vertical palm held out
towards the interlocutor and a palm face down and moved from side to side can
accompany a variety of expressions of negation (Harrison, ). A cyclic move-
ment of the hand(s) oen conveys continuity or repetition over time (Ladewig,
b). A variationist framework has also been applied to these gestures com-
paring how these gestures realize the expression of dierent but related concepts
across dierent languages/cultures (Bressem et al., ). It appears that these ges-
tural forms linked to common physical actions are quite widely shared across
dierent cultures raising the question of universal origins for gestures that are
grounded in common physical actions. However, other cross-cultural compar-
isons such as the expression of concepts such as size where one might expect simi-
lar gestures based on common actions of delimiting the boundaries of objects, are
not always the same. For example, Nyst’s () work, comparing size and shape
specifying gestures of Dutch speakers in the Netherlands with Anyi speakers in
Ivory Coast, shows that Anyi speakers gesture using both space-based and body-
based size depictions, while Dutch speakers use space-based representations (see
also Nyst, this volume).
Although there has been a great deal of interest in analysing and comparing
the use of individual co-speech gestures across languages, studies that describe
and compare general patterns of gestural behaviour in extended discourse both
monologic and conversational are relatively rare. Some research has used lan-
guage tasks such as narration to compare gestural behaviour between languages
122 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
looking at developmental as well as linguistic and cultural dierences (Colletta
et al., ). Comparative studies of extended discourse in natural interactions
include Efron’s ( []) study of Italian and Jewish immigrants and Kendon’s
() comparison of spontaneous discourse between an Italian and an English
speaker. Both studies revealed dierences in their use of gesture in terms of the
placement of gesture phrases, amplitude of movement, range of hand shapes,
information expressed in gesture, expression of speech acts and marking of dis-
course structure. However, as Kendon (:) points out, these studies were
limited to only a few communicative situations and therefore it is not possible
to generalize these gestural patterns to the speakers of a particular language as a
whole.
Most of the studies considered so far have focused on the speaker as the unit
of analysis and do not systematically investigate the inuence of the immedi-
ate interaction or wider context on the nature of gestures or gestural behaviour.
Efron’s study does include descriptions of some interactive aspects such as space
and regulatory actions between interlocutors. However, most work has not put
interaction at the centre of analysis. Communicative behaviour is treated as a pri-
ori cognitive and linguistic knowledge in the speaker’s mind rather than a product
of interaction.
However, interactionist approaches to gestures studies looking at the situated
nature of gestural communication communication (Goodwin, ; Streeck,
; Sweetser, , inter alia), show the importance of how social interaction
shapes gestures. Using natural data in spontaneous communicative settings, these
studies contextualize gestures to the immediate situation linking gestures to mate-
rial objects, space, the preceding discourse, communicative exchanges, commu-
nicative purposes and the relationship between interlocutors and their shared
knowledge. Pika and Deschner (this volume) also make a strong case for under-
standing gestures as a product of social interaction rather than individual learning
of xed actions patterns in their comparative studies of dierent chimpanzee
groups. They also demonstrate how dierences in the social organisation of dier-
ent chimpanzee cultures inuences social interaction that in turn inuences the
kinds of gestures that develop.
Some interactional work has gone beyond the analysis of the interactional
context to look at how cultural norms inuence speakers’ conduct in commu-
nicative exchanges. For example, norms of spatial positioning in interactions may
shape what articulators are used in gestural production. In situ studies of emerg-
ing sign languages in non-western contexts show how signers position themselves
dierently from speakers or signers of sign languages in the West who usually sit
face-to-face with some distance to have a conversation. For example, Levinson
() points out that among the Yélî Dnye, a culture using extremely close face-
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 123
to-face communication, facial expressions are a critical resource for managing
interactions.
Various cross-cultural studies show that the hands are far from being the only
or usual articulator. Other parts of the body are involved in the act of gesturing,
especially the eyes and facial articulators (see Eneld, ). In Mesoamerica, the
default sitting position is side-to-side or at an angle of degrees. However, even
within one culture, some variations exist and the Yucatec Mayas for instance do
not have strict preferences and chose ad hoc placement to have interactions (face-
to-face, side-by-side, sometimes even not looking at each other) (Le Guen, ).
Such positionings appear to shape which articulators are used. Even pointing, a
fundamental communicative strategy used among humans (and some humanoid
apes), may vary in which body parts are used. Cooperrider et al. () demon-
strates that among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea, pointing with the hand is
not the preferred strategy but that speakers rely on non-manual pointing, with the
nose and head.
Besides position and resulting articulatory habits, cultural ideologies also
shape the use of the body and gesture production. A common taboo against the
use of the le hand as bad or dirty in many cultures inuences what hand is used
to gesture as is the case in Ghana (Essegby & Kita, ) and Malawi (Sanders,
), but also among indigenous Australians (Green, this volume). These studies
raise the question of how we can understand gestural behaviour and variation
if we study them independently from the rest of the body or independently of
cultural norms that underly communicative interactional behaviour and bodily
conduct? Various contributions of this special volume exemplify how the cultural
context and the local ideology of the body eect gesture production. Green, Hav-
iland, and Nyst (this volume) provide convincing examples of how deep cultural
habits run in the production of gesture and how a new visual language, like an
emerging sign language, is impacted by cultural norms of the body. Such results
point to the need to pay attention not only to the hand but the whole body in
studying gesture and not just bodily parts that are part of “composite utterances”
(Eneld, ; Kendon, ).
Little work has attempted to systematically explore the link between the
nature of gestures, gestural behaviour and the wider sociocultural context. Studies
that have tried to do this have focused on specic gestures examining the types
of interactions and situations in which they are used, their communicative func-
tion and interactive functions and their social signicance. For example, Sherzer’s
(, ) studies of the thumbs up gesture in Brazil and lip-pointing among
Kuna Indians and Brookes’ (, ) studies of the cleva and HIV gestures in
South Africa all describe the contexts in which these gestures occur, their com-
municative and social roles and how these can be linked to wider social concerns,
social relations and ideological values within these societies.
124 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
But how do we account for dierences in the overall patterns of gestural
behaviour from one language community to another? For this purpose, Kendon
() has proposed the conceptual framework of ‘communicative ecology.’
Drawn from Hymes’ notion of the communicative economy, Kendon (,
p.) points out that we do not know to what extent gestural dierences are due
to the languages spoken or the wider cultural norms that shape conduct in inter-
action. He proposes that we consider the function of gesture in relation to other
modalities as well as the way it is used in interaction and the social norms that
govern social conduct of the culture as a whole. He emphasizes that we need more
studies of communicative ecologies and comparative studies to answer why ges-
tures vary. He exemplies this approach in his description of the communicative
ecology of Naples where gesturing is oen iconic in nature and a very prominent
part of Neapolitan communicative behaviour. A similar ecological analysis has
been done by Brookes () in South Africa looking at the nature and role of ges-
turing in South African townships particularly among male youth. In her analysis,
she compares Naples and a township in South Africa showing that both societies
share similar features that may have encouraged the imagistic nature of gesturing,
larger repertoires of established gestures and also the prominent role of gestures
in everyday interactions in both contexts.
Cooperrider (this volume) points out that systematic descriptions of the com-
municative ecologies of dierent cultures are important so that proper cross-
cultural comparisons can be done. He points out that descriptions of gestures
oen lack important details and that working out the details of what commu-
nicative ecological analysis entails would allow for systematic comparison. At the
same time, he argues that more comprehensive and holistic studies of gesture may
go further in our understanding of what is universal in gesture and what is cul-
turally specic. From the comparison of “strict universals” (that is, gestures with
an exact form and function that occurred in early studies of quotable gestures),
the gesture eld has moved to the notion of iconicity and “natural conventions”
(Cooperrider, this volume) that allows for a more fruitful reanalysis of “univer-
sals”. For example, Kendon () suggests that the precision grip is derived from
the way humans handle small objects and hence the notion of “precision” is not in
itself a cultural construction, but arises from the aordance of the world, specif-
ically from manipulating of objects in daily life. Similar explanations have been
given for the so-called “palm-up” gesture and gestures of negation (Cooperrider,
Abner, et al., , this volume; Müller, ; Vincze et al., ). Similar tenden-
cies have been explored more recently, especially in the domain of sign language
(Hwang et al., ; Padden et al., ). In recent years, we have seen a turn in
cross-cultural research not focused on strict items comparison but on structures
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 125
and social actions. Such approaches appear to be more fruitful for uncovering
universals that then are culturally adapted (Dingemanse et al., , , ).
Although contributions to this volume do not explicitly problematize the con-
cept of culture and the conation of language and ethnic or cultural identity, we
raise this issue briey here to reect on whether we can treat language and culture
boundaries as the primary variables in studying variation in gesture. Are national,
ethno-linguistic and cultural boundaries the primary determinants of dierences
in gestural behaviour. Should studies of variation conate linguistic with national
identity in accounting for gestural dierences? Should we understand gestural dif-
ferences as a function primarily of cultural dierences based on a notion of cul-
ture that is autonomous and bounded?
Gestural variation within a linguistic community needs to be investigated if
we wish to shed light on how sociocultural practices might shape gesture. An
excellent illustration of gestural variation within a linguistic group is Driessen’s
() anthropological study of gesturing among males in bars in rural Andalusia
in Spain. Men use specic gestures and gestural behaviour to express a particular
notion of masculinity and to exercise power and dominance over other males in
in this setting. This study raises the question as to what extent linguistic or cul-
tural boundaries are useful for looking at gestural variation? Do they obscure or
limit our view in how the components of a communicative ecology might shape
gestural behaviour? For example, are dierences in gestural space a function of
masculine identity and/or dominance and power in interactions rather than just
a function of a culture? Can we make claims about national/ethnic dierences
based on only one communicative task such as narration with relatively small
samples? How does communicative task, identities, relations of power and lan-
guage intersect in the use of gesture?
The whole debate about the treatment of cultures as bounded and
autonomous in anthropology is a long and complex one. Can this debate inform
underlying assumptions in gesture studies about national, cultural and linguistic
identity that may limit how we understand and account for dierences in gesture
and gestural behaviour? This is particularly pertinent given a globalized world.
Cooperrider (this volume) raises the issue of a loss of gestural diversity
through globalization and the urgency of cross-cultural description and com-
parison especially where the spread of more powerful/ privileged gestural prac-
tices might ultimately erase the gestural practices of marginalized communities.
Increased access to global communication is impacting more and more relatively
isolated communities, and the spread of gestures across cultural boundaries is
also an important element in understanding variation. For instance, the Yucatec
Mayan Sign Language, Le Guen et al. (forthcoming) note several borrowings
such as OK (thumb up) for “good”, the ring index and thumb-touching and other
126 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
ngers opened above for “tasty” and the L in front of the forehead for “loser”.
All these gestures originate from outside Mayan culture and have been borrowed
through visual exposure to other cultures’ visual behaviour, in this case, through
TV and movies. These changes are also evident in gestures for insults in Mexico
City. Older generations generally produce a gesture of anger done with the index
nger making a ring with the thumb and rotating it downward. Younger genera-
tions use the middle nger because it is more common in their daily visual expe-
rience through US movies and the internet. We also notice among the younger
generation of speakers of Yucatec Maya, now bilingual with Spanish, a change in
their gestural metaphors for time. While traditional and older Yucatec Mayan peo-
ple would use a distinction between now vs. not now (past of future) visible in
their gestures (Le Guen & Pool Balam, ), educated younger generations tend
to produce gesture that reects the one used by Spanish and westerners: the future
is in front and the past is to one’s back. Such change echoes a cognitive change
and a cultural loss (although proper examination remains to be conducted).
Gesture in anthropology
Kendon (this volume) points out that the rst scientic work on gesture was con-
ducted from an anthropological point of view, as was most work on gesture until
the s. His overview, from the eighteenth until the beginning of the st cen-
tury, provides essential historical perspective on how anthropology and related
elds have contributed to the study of gesture. We briey summarize some of
these main contributions Kendon has highlighted.
Early anthropologists considered gesture to be an important component of
human behaviour. Tylor, the founder of cultural anthropology, wrote about the
value of studying the development of communicative signs in gesture and spoken
language for understanding the origins of language in his work Researches ()
(Kendon, this volume). Like Tylor, other early anthropologists such as Mallery’s
( []) who studied American Indian sign language and gesture, viewed the
study of gesture to be key for understanding the origins of language. Early anthro-
pological studies of indigenous groups in the late nineteenth century included
descriptions of gestural behaviour. Most notable were studies of indigenous Aus-
tralian societies that described the prominent use of gesture in everyday commu-
nication and the use of complex signing that replaced speech among widows in
mourning (See Kendon (), this volume; Green, this volume).
Kendon points out that, in the early th century, linguists and anthropol-
ogists such as Boas and Sapir recognized the value of studying bodily move-
ments including gesture. Boas saw bodily movement as culturally patterned and
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 127
an important element in the analysis of culture. Sapir recognised the importance
of gesture as part of communicative utterances. For Sapir, bodily movements were
a social code whose structure could be analysed systematically (Kendon, this vol-
ume). Boas’ interest in gesture was also the impetus for his student, Efron’s ()
seminal comparative study of gestural behaviour among Jewish and Italian immi-
grants to New York. Anthropologists such as Kroeber, Vogelin and La Mont West
who conducted research on Native American Sign Languages all considered ges-
ture as an integral part of their studies (Kendon, this volume).
Gesture and bodily communication were also central to anthropological work
on social interaction and “symbolic interactionism” (George Herbert Mead, ).
Mead (, ) and Bateson’s work on embodied social interaction emphasized
close observations of interactional practices in social groups (Kendon, this vol-
ume). Bodily conduct has also been considered important for revealing relations
and structures in social groups as well as social rules and underlying cultural
norms that govern behaviours (Duranti, ; Kendon, ; Mauss, ).
Out of this anthropological tradition came Birdwhistell’s science of kinesics
and the development of the Natural History Method with detailed analysis of
human interactions in context (Kendon, this volume). Kendon also notes the
inuence of Goman’s work on symbolic and social interaction (Goman, )
and the development of conversation analysis (Sacks et al., ; Scheglo &
Sacks, ). While not anthropological, this work laid the groundwork for inter-
actionist studies of gesture. These areas of investigation led to extension of con-
versation analysis into embodied communication and the role of symbolic
communication particularly gesture in relation to the material and social context
(Goodwin, ) and interactionist approaches to gestures pioneered by Streeck
() and Mondada () among others.
Linguistic anthropologists in the second half of the th century, such as
Sherzer (; ) and most notably Haviland, continued to make the contex-
tual study of gestural practices in language communities an important focus in
their work. Haviland’s (, ) studies on gesture among indigenous groups
in Australia and more recently on emerging sign languages among Mayan groups
in Mexico demonstrates the complex interrelationship of conceptual expression
in gesture, spoken language, context and environment and the importance of the
situated study of gesture in understanding how signs emerge (Haviland, this vol-
ume). Continuing this focus is work by Le Guen on the development of emerg-
ing sign languages in Mexico. In Australia, work by Blythe et al. () on how
cultural avoidance and the aordances of the Murrinhpatha language impact
pointing and other gestures and Green’s work (this volume) both situate ges-
tural practice in relation to interactional and sociocultural practices. Green’s work
on narratives from a multimodal perspective among Australian indigenous com-
128 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
munities and the multimodal nature of respect show how material and micro-
level ideologies relating to cultural circumstances impact and modify both verbal
and gestural behaviour. Sherzer’s (; ) anthropological work looking on
the communicative functions, social role and signicance of prominent gestures
within societies has been continued in similar studies by Brookes (; ),
whose starting point was the question of why specic gestures become codied
and prominent in language communities. These studies show that gestures reveal
a great deal about interactional practices, the social norms that underlie them
and how local and wider ideologies in societies shape the nature of gestures and
their use.
Although gesture has not featured much in anthropological studies over the
last few decades, several recent studies demonstrate that gesture can inform
understanding of current concerns in anthropology around identity, race, gender
and power. Covington-Ward’s book Gesture and power: Religion, nationalism, and
everyday performance in Congo () and her contribution to this volume, high-
light how embodied practices and gesture are part of mobilizing social and polit-
ical action to make political claims, enforce power or encourage dissent. Gesture
and embodiment play a central role in linking and sustaining cultural practices
and relations of power and in challenging them. Similarly, we see how gestures
play a part in identity practices, in discourses about race and in the maintenance
of ethnic-social distinctions (Floyd, this volume).
The importance of gesture for discursive and social power is also demon-
strated by anthropologists Hall, Goldstein, and Ingram () in their recent
study of Trump’s rhetorical style. They show how he uses gestures to critique the
political system and caricature his opponents with exaggerated gestural depic-
tions that become emblematic of their political persona. They point out that ges-
tures create the excess needed for comedic eect. At the same time, the ambiguous
nature of the gestural mode allows for plausible deniability so that gestures do
ideological work beyond what spoken language can achieve. Hall et al.’s analysis
shows how Trump’s use of gestures are key to his rhetoric as entertainment and
spectacle. They argue that Trump’s use of gestures for comedic eect gives him
rhetorical power and visual capital to create spectacle that compels the attention
of both supporters and detractors.
How gesture is used rhetorically to do ideological work has also been
addressed in gesture studies by both linguistic anthropologists and gesture schol-
ars. Lempert’s () analysis of Obama’s use of the ring gesture shows how it
functions at dierent communicative levels, not only as a form of emphasis for
making a sharp point at the discursive level, but at another level as a symbol of
authority and at a wider level as indexical of an authoritative persona. Similarly,
Streeck () demonstrates how Democratic presidential candidates in the
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 129
campaign avoided using iconic gestures in keeping with the gravitas expected in
the rhetorical style of politicians.
These studies show how gestures are powerful for accomplishing ideological
work because the body is oen viewed as an unmediated reection of one’s inner
character and identity. Gestures and gestural behaviour can be an empirical entry
into understanding ideological and social processes as well as revealing oper-
ations of social power and control. Lempert (this volume) raises the question
as to whether gestures can be studied apart from other bodily communication.
How much should gesture be contextualized in relation to bodily conduct for an
anthropological analysis and can it be treated as a single object of study either
alone or with spoken language? Gesture studies has steered away from including
other forms of communicative body motion that are not part of utterances. How-
ever, anthropologists such as Agwuele (), Covington-Ward (), Green,
Floyd, and Lempert (this volume) remind us that gestures are part of bodily prac-
tices suggesting that the separation between the two should not be strict but ex-
ible according to the focus of research.
Will anthropologists rediscover the signicance and value of gesture in socio-
cultural analysis? With the broadening of what constitutes language and the
importance and prominence of visual communication through digital communi-
cation, perhaps it will not be easy to ignore gesture. But can there be an anthro-
pology or anthropologies of gesture. Can gesture be a nexus of ideologies and
practices that constitute the total social fact as Lempert (this volume) asks? Lem-
pert asks ‘at what cost a science of gesture can contextualize its object integra-
tively.’ We hope from these discussions and the contributions that follow that that
the eld of gestures studies might ask, ‘What will be the cost of not understanding
gesture integratively?’
Contributions to this volume
We begin with Adam Kendon’s historical review of studies of gesture from an
anthropological perspective, ‘Gesture and anthropology: Notes for an historical
essay’, as it provides the historical background to the important role anthropology
and anthropological approaches have played in gesture studies. As already noted,
the rst scientic work on gesture was conducted from an anthropological point
of view as was most work on gesture up until the s. However, Kendon points
out that it was not just anthropologists that took an anthropological approach
to gesture. The Neapolitan archaeologist, de Jorio produced what can be consid-
ered the rst ethnography of gesture in in which he describes the uses and
130 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
social signicance of gesture use in Naples (de Jorio, ). With the founding
of anthropology in the nineteenth century, early anthropologists such as Tylor
() considered gesture important for understanding how communicative signs
and languages develop. Early anthropological studies of so-called ‘primitive’ cul-
tures also generated a number of descriptions of gesture, most notably among
indigenous peoples in Australia (see Kendon () for a review) and the Amer-
icas (Mallery, []). Anthropologists such as Boas, Mead and Bateson who
took an embodied social interaction perspective within social anthropology also
considered gesture. While interest in gesture decreased among anthropologists
in subsequent decades, Kendon points to two areas of investigation on gesture,
culture and variation that can be considered to take an anthropological view.
The rst is descriptive studies of emblems/quotable gestures among dierent
ethno-linguistic groups. However, as noted earlier, only a few studies of emblems/
quotable gestures have developed their descriptions into ethnographic accounts
of the circumstances of these gestures’ use (Brookes, ; Sherzer, ; ). A
second area has come from folklore studies (see Hayes, )and historical studies
of gesture (Braddick, ; Schmitt, ). Kendon also notes the contribution
of work on social interaction focusing on conversation analysis and later on vis-
ible bodily action in interaction known as “the natural history method.” Kendon
points out that these two areas have evolved into the study of multimodal or
embodied communication that have contributed an ‘anthropological sensibility’
to the study of gestures.
In his paper ‘What is an anthropology of gesture?’, Michael Lempert writes
that the term anthropology evokes a methodological sensibility that is both com-
parative and integrative/holistic. He points out that comparative studies of gesture
already exist where gestural variation is treated mainly as a function of linguistic
variation. However, if we are to explore gesture from an integrative or holistic per-
spective, Lempert argues we will need to address the challenge of linking gestural
semiotics to the contextual. He illustrates the challenges of adopting an integra-
tive sensibility by focusing on the work of Birdwhistell who was unable to fully
address the challenge of linking microanalyses in the science of kinesics with
broader social structures. Lempert asks how do we empirically and theoretically
link micro-level features with socio-cultural context. He suggests that we need to
revisit this challenge, if developing an anthropology of gesture means develop-
ing an integrative sensibility. He raises several dilemmas. How do we integrate
gesture with culture and society if we treat gesture primarily as an autonomous
system? Lempert argues that it appears easier to link established gestures, such
as quotable gestures, and gestural behaviours that are part of users’ metacom-
municative awareness to social roles and ideologies than gestures that seem less
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 131
conventional. However, an integrative anthropology cannot take only one type of
gesture as its object of study. As he points out, ethnographers, such as Covington-
Ward who examines gesture and power relations in the Congo, do not limit them-
selves to manual gestures, but treat gesture in an integrated manner as part of
embodied communication. How gesture is connected to other bodily movements,
language and the social are essential for an integrative analysis. Lempert asks
whether it is possible to have and integrative science of gesture, “and at what cost
a science of gesture can contextualize its object integratively” (Lempert, this vol-
ume). Pushing this idea even further, Lempert invokes Mauss’ () notion of
the “total social fact” and asks whether there can be ‘a total gestural fact’. Should
this be the aim of an anthropology of gesture?
Kensy Cooperrider’s paper ‘Universals and diversity in gesture: Research
past, present, and future’, addresses the challenge of developing a systematic inte-
grative approach to the study of gesture. His point of departure is the universality
vs diversity debate. This debate has reemerged in response to studies that show
how dierent languages employ similar gestural forms to perform comparable
functions, but at the same time show systematic variation (Bressem et al., ).
Some examples would be the palm-up gesture (Müller, ), gestures of negation
(Harrison, ) and pointing gestures (Kita, ). As Cooperrider puts it, we
can see that ‘gesture is both unmistakably similar and broadly diverse’. To coher-
ently account for universal and diverse aspects of gesture, he stresses the need for
more consistently comprehensive descriptions of gestures, extensive systematic
sampling, and holistic situated analyses of the place of gestures within the reper-
toires of their users across various cultural settings. Cooperrider proposes a con-
ceptual toolkit that considers dierent levels of abstraction dividing gestures into
gestural conventions (form-meaning correspondences), gestural kinds (typolo-
gies and gestural strategies/techniques) and their properties (relation to speech,
gestural components). Most interesting are Cooperrider’s dierent approaches to
looking at diversity in gesture by not only exploring the use of the same form
or function across dierent cultures, but also employing a semantic domain cen-
tered approach such as ‘time’ to see what gesture regularities occur with this con-
cept. He also proposes comparing the ‘privileging’ of dierent gestures across
social groups. By “privileged”, he means that they manifest some kind of prefer-
ence (i.e., frequency of use), prototypicality (i.e., better tted for a specic func-
tion) and primacy (one gesture is used early on among children instead of others
that comply with a similar function). But to establish these privileges, the author
points out, requires systematic sampling methods and in-depth observation. For
this, Cooperrider draws on Kendon’s () concept of the communicative ecol-
ogy for understanding how gestures come to be used in specic ways. He sug-
gests we might consider not only biomechanical constraints but also cognitive,
communicative and interactive constraints as well as communicative ideologies.
132 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
While there may be gestures emerging out of natural conventions such as nega-
tion and armation, gesture is also culturally selected and shaped. Cooperrider
argues that systematic explanations as to whether certain factors of the commu-
nicative ecology give rise to specic gestures and gestural practices, requires the
eld of gestures to broaden the base of its observations to include a more contex-
tual/anthropological approach both methodologically and analytically.
Both systematic integrative and comparative frameworks are brought
together in Simone Pika and Tobias Deschner’s study ‘Communicative culture
in chimpanzee gesturing’. Comparing two dierent chimpanzee groups, they use
interactional and ecological approaches to explore how dierences in social orga-
nization can account for gestural diversity. Pika and Deschner point out that
while there is considerable evidence for gestural diversity, the ‘why’ of gestural
diversity is less clear. They argue that comparative work focusing on communica-
tive exchanges in relation to social organization in dierent communicative cul-
tures can provide answers as to why dierent kinds of gestures develop., They
show how gestures evolve from social negotiation grounded in interactional
exchanges rather than individual learning processes of xed action patterns that
has been the perspective in previous studies of chimpanzees. Their work shows
that dierences in gesturing between the two chimpanzee cultures is related to
the complexity of social negotiation and social structure. They show that more
complex interaction and social exposure create a greater variety of gestural use
and a diversity of gestural behaviours in groups with more sophisticated social
structures. Pika and Deschner argue that communicative interactions rather than
a focus on the gestural expression of individuals are the best way to understand
communicative culture as gestural use is grounded in social rather than individual
learning processes. Their integrative approach in cross comparisons of commu-
nicative cultures is essential in understanding the nature of gesturing and how
gestures develop dierently.
The value of comparative and integrative approaches in understanding the
complex inuences of language, culture and environment on the expression of
concepts in gesture is demonstrated in John Haviland’s anthropological work in
gestures studies that spans four decades. In his paper ‘Space as space, and space
as grammar: An anthropological journey through gesture(d) spaces’, Haviland
explores how Australian Guugu Yimithirr speakers, Zinacantec Tzotzil Mayan
speakers and three signers within one family of a new sign language (Zinacantec
Family Homesign (Z), use gesture to express spatial concepts. Guugu Yimithirr
has lexical roots denoting cardinal directions and its speakers’ gestures are ori-
ented according to the compass with and without explicit spoken directional
terms. Studying their narratives over time, Haviland shows that gestures continue
to reect a cardinal perspective independent of spoken morphological features.
In contrast, Zinacantec Tzotzil does not have spoken lexical roots denoting cardi-
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 133
nal directions yet speakers still gesture cardinal directions very precisely. Z sign-
ers also point according to cardinal directions suggesting that the gesturing of
Zinacantec Tzotzil speakers inuences Z signers. However, Z signers can gestu-
rally divide their perceptual world into le and right, something that Zinacantec
Tzotzil speakers do not do. Haviland points out that Z signers demonstrate this
perceptual division under quasi-experimental conditions. Haviland’s use of dier-
ent methods, his observations over time and his comparative ecological frame-
work demonstrate how levels of context such as immediate frames of reference,
speakers’ knowledge, language structures, language contact, cultural practices,
and relationship with the material environment intersect in shaping how space is
expressed in speech and gestures.
A similar focus in societies where ‘emerging’ or ‘shared’ sign languages have
developed show that cultural practices have a dening impact on the very form
of the linguistic system. Victoria Nyst’s paper ‘The impact of cross-linguistic vari-
ation in gesture on sign language phonology and morphology: the case of size
and shape speciers’, reveals that the gestures and cultural habits used among
surrounding communities of speakers directly inuence the resources used to
create communicative tools in sign languages. Nyst discusses several studies she
has undertaken comparing Shape and Size Speciers (SASS) gestures and signs
in spoken and sign languages in West Africa and Dutch and European sign
languages. While Dutch speakers use a variety of handshapes and few body-
based SASS’s, gestures from Anyi spoken in Côte d’Ivoire rely heavily on body-
based instead of space-based size depiction. All three West African sign languages,
AdaSL (Adamorobe), LaSiBo (Bouakako SL) and LaSiMa (Malian SL) use body-
based SASS signs and make little use of space-based size depiction in lexical signs.
Cultural inuences appear to have direct impact on sign strategies and on the
phonology of the signs. Since three unrelated sign languages have developed sim-
ilar structures in response to similarities in their gestural environment, she sug-
gests that culture-specic patterning may impact on cross-linguistic variation in
sign languages. Clearly an anthropological comparative approach to gesture and
visual behaviour allows for such a nding and provides insight regarding the
impact of cultural visual behaviour on communication.
How cultural practices are embedded in visual communication is also demon-
strated in Jennifer Green’s paper, ‘Embodiment and degrees of respect in speech
and action’. In some cultures, such as among indigenous Australian groups, spe-
cic family relationships are based on avoidance. One way to show avoidance is
by using or avoiding a specic lexicon. While avoidance has been well described
in spoken languages, another way of communicating respectfully is by using
sign. Green describes the use of what have been called ‘alternate sign languages
(Kendon, )’, a visual mode of communication in aboriginal communities,
134 Heather Brookes and Olivier Le Guen
used instead of speech under certain circumstances (see Bauer, ; Kendon,
). Green gathered data among Anmatyerr signers from the Arandic region
of Central Australia as well in six language groups: Kuninjku, Ndjébbana, Kun-
barlang, Gun-nartpa, Burarra and Wurlaki ga Djinang, from the north region of
Arnhem Land. Green describes a variety of ways in which this specic cultural
requirement is fullled visually, for instance in altering the ways of pointing, mak-
ing them less easy and intuitive (with the elbow instead of the nger) and using
signs covering the face (coming originally from the gesture used to avoid sight).
Interestingly, not only speech and gesture are avoided, but in some cases, all bod-
ily interaction is to be suppressed with people communicating through a chain of
intermediaries. The importance of Green’s contribution lies in her description of
behaviour to show respect that ranges from multimodal communication to sign,
both strongly related because they are anchored in cultural obligations.
Just as Green’s work shows how cultural values shape gestures and bodily
behaviour, Yolanda Covington-Ward’s paper ‘Considerations of temporality and
power in an anthropology of gesture’ reveals how gestures and bodily practices
play a role in shaping social relations and society. She investigates the role of
gestures and other bodily practices in negotiating social meaning and power in
the pre-colonial era Kongo Kingdom in West Central Africa. Her work demon-
strates how local religious formations and other forms of resistance used gestures
of respect and other symbolic actions to challenge social hierarchies and power
structures in the Kongo Kingdom increasingly inltrated by Catholic missionar-
ies. Gestures and other bodily practices were used by those in power and those
resisting colonial powers to express allegiance or rejection of authority. Body
and gesture were at the centre of interpersonal and larger social transformations.
Covington-Ward shows the importance of historical accounts of the social and
semantic evolution of gestures for understanding the role of gestures in the pre-
sent. Her work illustrates both the value of anthropology in understanding how
social circumstances inuence the meaning and use of gestures over time and the
importance of gesture for anthropology in understanding processes of power and
inequality.
The role of gestures in socio-political processes is the theme of the nal con-
tribution to this special issue. Simeon Floyd’s paper ‘Body-directed gesture and
expressions of racial dierence in Chachi and Afro-Ecuadorian discourse’ inves-
tigates the role and relevance of body-directed gesture in local discourses about
race and social dierentiation comparing two marginalized neighbouring groups:
the indigenous Chachi of Ecuador who speak Cha’palaa, and Afro-descendant
Spanish speakers in Ecuador. Floyd examines the gestural and multimodal com-
ponents of racializing discourse and the kinds of gestural practices that are salient
in discourse about racial dierences. He shows how indexical-iconic self-directed
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 135
gestures reference body parts in discourses about racial and ethnic dierence. He
also looks at the formal and semiotic features of body-pointing and how indexical
as well as indexical-iconic gestures are used to talk about racial phenotypes, par-
ticularly skin and hair, while also highlighting associative characteristics of social
groups such as clothing, accessories and activities. While these gestures have
not become independent symbols of category identication and rely on spoken
language for their meaning, Floyd, drawing on Fanon’s ( []) notion of
“historico-racial schema”, points out that the semiotics of body and how humans
divide up the body or create bodily schema is a socio-politically process. Con-
textualized within the socio-historical context of racialization, Floyd shows how
body and gesture play a role in reinforcing historical concepts about race and
body.
Conclusion
Anthropology and anthropological approaches have made a signicant contribu-
tion to the eld of gesture studies. We hope that these brief reections and the con-
tributions that follow may go some way to answering the questions we raised at
the beginning, but also stimulate many new questions and possibilities for further
work by both scholars in gesture studies and for anthropologists for whom the
study of gesture and embodied communication might shed light on social issues
that are of current concern in anthropology.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the support of the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences,
South Africa, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Inc., for funding
the th Conference of the International Society for Gesture Studies. We would like to express
our gratitude to all the contributors for their work, collaboration and patience. We are also
indebted to all the anonymous reviewers who provided excellent feedback to improve the con-
tribution of this special volume. Finally, we want to thank the editors of Gesture and Benjamins
(specially Sotaro Kita, Esther Roth and Heleen Groesbeek) who helped us every step of the way.
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Address for correspondence
Olivier Le Guen
CIESAS
Juárez , Centro Tlapan
Mexico City
Mexico
ompleguen@gmail.com
Biographical notes
Heather Brookes is an anthropological linguist specializing in ethnography of communication
and gesture. She is co-director of Child Language Africa based at the University of Cape Town.
She works on gesture and youth languages as well as speech and gestural development in south-
ern African Bantu languages. She was a Vice-President of the International Society of Gesture
Studies from to .
Olivier Le Guen specializes in the study of the Yucatec Maya culture and language as well as the
Yucatec Maya Sign Language. He is currently professor in Linguistic-anthropology at CIESAS
(Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, Mexico). His research
is multidisciplinary oriented and integrates methods from anthropology, linguistics and cog-
nitive psychology, to explore the way culture and language can inuence or constrain human
cognition, specically through the forms of social interaction.
Gesture studies and anthropological perspectives 141
