SOCIAL NETWORKING, GOSSIP AND
THE ANTHROPOLOGIST
• In order to understand, it is immensely
important for the person who understands to
be located outside the object of his or her
creative understanding--in time, in space, in
culture. For one cannot even really see
one’s own exterior and comprehend it as a
whole, and no mirrors or photographs can
help; our real exterior can be seen and
understood only by other people…(Bakhtin)
Today’s objectives
• to deconstruct gossip as a social, cultural
and political arena in Nicaragua in which
people (A) dominate and challenge one
another and (B) cement social relations
• to glance the Nicaraguan social and political
situation of the 70’s and 80’s through film
and from a different point of view
Multidimensional approach to
culture
• Many social realms; family community,
race, etc.
• Discourse and social practices: gossip,
compadrazgo
• Conventional and transformative:
• tools for domination: Dona Celia’s case
• to cement social relations
• Economic, psychological and political
Double edged sword
• To dominate and to be dominated: it can
backfire
• State of in-between-ness
• Public and private
• A form of public opinion
A true collectivism of language
• Particular tone: Whispering
• Vocabulary: nicknames
• comment on political situations: During
dictatorship
• Political discourse: Sandinista era
Not a trivial matter
• Not seen but present
• Practical:
• future information: coping with shortages
• present information: avoiding danger
The anthropologist and gossip
• S/he is also involved: information,
participant observation
• Awareness of dimensions of local and
global power
• “Nothing truly belongs to anyone; it all
circulates in the form of information,
speculation, between and among us”
The duality of gossip
• Offensive and defensive
• Malicious gossip
• Strategic
Critique
• 1.Fails
to link gossip as a form of
resistance against machismo
• 2.Fails to inquiry deep enough into
some Nicaraguan social norms:
resulting in cultural mis-representation
Gossip as a form of resistance
• Challenging the public identity of men
• Making information public
• Contradicting the public persona of men
• Two outcomes: punishment or stop abuse
Cultural misrepresentation
• Fails to understand local social action
• Does not investigate thoroughly enough one
cultural given
• Puts into question his academic authority
summary
• Gossip transformative: adapts to particular
circumstances
• A tool for domination and to create and
maintain social networks
• Duality of culture
Pictures from a Revolution: a memoir of the
Nicaraguan conflict
• 1991
• By susan Meiselas, Richard Rogers and
Alfred Gazetti