Ways of Knowing
Ethnographies have always been written
in the context of historical changes: the
formation of state systems and the
evolution of a world political economy
(Marcus 1986: 165)
Representation: the presentation
of something not present.
Representations could be:
• Linguistic
• Figurative
• Theoretical
Kinds of Representations
• Similar
• Metonymic (part for the whole)
The Crisis of Representation
• A critique of Western thought
Orientalism, Edward Said (1977)
A critique of the Western system of
representation
Orientalism signifies a system of
representations framed by political forces that
brought the Orient into Western learning,
Western consciousness, and Western empire.
The Orient exists for the West, and is
constructed by and in relation to the West. It is
a mirror image of what is inferior and alien
("Other") to the West.
System of Representation
Predicated on:
• Rhetorical devices
• ---Through colonialism as a rhetorical
exercise in power
• ---Through imperialism: the history of the
Orient
Anthropological contributions to
the Western Mentality
• Literary texts: objectification
• Image: the exotic
• Theories: development, evolution
Writing Culture: the Poetics and
Politics of Ethnography (Clifford
and Marcus 1986)
1.Epistemological crisis (new epistemological
challenges)
2. Representation contestations (on a number
of grounds)
Anthropological Responses
• Reflexivity: acknowledgment of the role of
subjectivity
• Experimental strategies: changing of
forms (monovocal to polyvocal)
Recognition of global and economic
realities: colonialism, racism, neocolonialism, etc.
After Writing Culture…(James,
Hockey and Dawson 1997)
• Help us
--inform the practice
--look at new ways (styles)
--pay close attention (epistemology)
--consider how reflexivity can be an important
tool in the ethnographic process
Today’s Dilemmas
• The humanistic nature of representational
practices puts into question the validity of
research.
• The difficulty of uncovering whose
representations and by whom.
• Problem of form: difference of forms
• The politics and ethics issues and dilemas in
representations.
The humanist nature of
representational practices
The difficulty of uncovering
whose representations and by
whom are they.
Problems of form
Politics and ethics of
representations
Positivism
A doctrine which claims that social life should
be understood and analyzed in the same way
that scientists study the 'natural world'.
Underpinning this philosophy is the notion
that phenomena exist in causal relationships
and these can be empirically observed, tested
and measured. [Tony Bilton et al, 1996:666]
Realist Ethnographies
(characteristics)
• Single authorship
• Exclusion of personal experiences
• Push for authenticity
Conventions of Realist Ethn
• Based on experiential authority
-
Particular style (ethnographic
form)
• “Early in the morning each village almost literally
explodes. Asak and odok come down and the
village reveals itself for what it is, a
conglomeration of individuals of all ages, each
going his own way in search of food and water,
like a plague of locusts spreading over the land”
(Turnbull, The Mountain People, 1971).
Third convention: Absence of native
point of view
• Monovocality
• Closely edited quotations
• Verbatim transcriptions
Interpretive Omnipotence
• No longer a marginal, or occulted, dimension,
writing has emerged as central to what
anthropologist do both in the field and thereafter.
The fact that it has not until recently been
portrayed or seriously discussed reflects the
persistence of an ideology claiming transparency
of representation and immediacy of experience
(Clifford, 1986: 2).
It draws attention two aspects
of anthropology
• to the historical predicaments of
ethnography
• the fact that ethnography is interpretation,
invention and not an unbiased, totally
objective representation of a culture
Ethnography is interpretation, invention
and not an unbiased, totally objective
representation of a culture:
• literary power
• literary processes affects: 1. cultural
phenomena 2. audience
Literary processes
• metaphor,
• figuration,
• narrative style
Ethnographic writing (art) is
characterized in at least six ways
• contextually )it draws from a creates a meaningful
cultural milieu)
• rhetorically (it uses and is used by expressive
conventions)
• institutionally (one writes within and against
specific traditions, disciplines, audiences) ) (Mead)
• generically (it has its own characteristics) usually
distinguished from a novel, travel writing,
journalism)
• politically (the ethnography has the authority to
represent, cultural realities are unequally shared and
are contested)
• historically (all conventions are changing)
Discussion questions
• Why do we represent certain things
in culture and avoid others?
What are the criteria we use to
select some aspects of a culture
and ignore others?
How do we select and why?