Every ethnographer is painfully aware of
the discrepancy between the richness of
the lived experience and the paucity of
the language used to characterize it
(Bruner 1984: 6).
The Anthropology of the Senses
“The taste of ethnographic things” (Paul
Stoller 1989)
“The Varieties of Sensory Experiences”
(David Howes: 1992)
“Sensual Relations” (David Howes
2003)
“The Taste of Ethnographic Things”
(Paul Stoller 1989)
---Songhay, Niger
Tamara Kohn (1994)
Incomers and Fieldworkers
• Yakha (Tibeto-Burman)
• Tamaphok, East Nepal
Her questions are:
• What are Yakha ideas about the relationship of
culture and language and do incomers share these
ideas?
• To what extend do early experiences, feelings, and
expressions, set the scene for later knowledge?
Stephen Tyler
• “The Unspeakable” (1988).
• Evocation: With evocation, the purpose is to
cause an entity that is absent to become
present within a particular space.
We have learned two notions:
• That experience before one learns
language is important for
anthropological knowledge
• That describing sensual and nonverbal experience is a very
difficult task
Readings for next week:
Jack Goody: “Representations
and Contradictions…”
Have a great Thanksgiving Day!