Ethnography or self-cultural anthropology?: Reflections onwriting about ourselves

Dialectical Anthropology

Volumn 25, Issue 3-4, 2000, Pages 297-320

  Ryang, Sonia ^a  

^a JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846833158     PISSN: 03044092     EISSN: 15730786     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1011626917988     Document Type: Review

References (57)

1. The most notable turning point in the post-Writing Culture anthropology is symbolized in Richard Fox ed., Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present (Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991).
2. Although, as Escovar points out, not all the authors share the same stance, and at least Rabinow seems to be arguing for a self-probing anthropology of the west (or more specifically, western academe) by the western anthropologist, the volume marks one of the clearest attempts to leave the reflexivity behind, without reverting back to the objectivity. See Arturo Escovar, "The Limits of Reflexivity: Politics in Anthropology's Post-Writing Culture Era," Journal of Anthropological Research (1993), No. 49, pp. 377-391.
3. See also P. Steven Sangren, "Rhetoric and the Authority of Ethnography: 'Postmodernity' and the Social Reproduction of Texts," Current Anthropology (1988), Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 405-424, for a critique of reflexive anthropology.
4. One of the consequences the eighties debate brought to the discipline of anthropology was to multiplicate the direction of ethnographical writing - not necessarily outward in the field, but inward, toward anthropologists themselves. Many self-focused experimental writings, which used to be seen as an irrelevant byproduct of fieldwork, re-emerged, attracting more serious attention. Margerie Wolf published an experiential short story based on her field data, which she kept unpublished for decades, in a volume in which she juxtaposes it with her scholarly article using the same data. See Margery Wolf, A Thrice Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism and Ethnographic Responsibility (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).
5. This stands in contrast to the Bohannan case: in 1964, Laura Bohannan published her ethnographical novel with her real name attached to it; when it was first published in 1955, she did not clarify her name, since there was a concern that the publication of such writing as novel might impinge her scholarly reputation. See Elenore Smith Bowen [Laura Bohannan], Return to Laughter: An Anthropological Novel (New York: Anchor Books, 1964).
6. The citation from recent Innovative Anthropology catalogue from Waveland Press should suffice: a) To the mountain and back: The mysteries of Guatemalan highland family life. Jody Glittenberg. 1994. Glittenberg's involving account traces her three work experiences in highland Guatemala and her own growth as a nurse, an anthropologist, and a person becoming aware of the world community. b) Bambo Jordan: An anthropological narrative. Bruce Williams. 1994. This book, written in an engaging narrative style, explores the complex, two-sided interaction between the author and Jordan Dama, the author's cook and friend, as they confront and learn to understand and to recognize each other. Through the pages of this lively ethnography Jordan Dama's own words introduce us to his land and the people of Malawi. c) West in the wind: Adventures in anthropology on a Tropical island. Martha Ward. 1989. This best-selling ethnography about the author's field experiences on the tropical island of Pohnpei in the early 1970s addresses the standard questions of ethnography (including family life, sex, childbirth, economics, politics, religion, medicine, magic and death) in the easy format of personal experiences with real people. d) Road through the rain forest: Living anthropology in Highland Papua New Guinea. David Hayano. 1990. This case study unfolds the story of an anthropologist who learns that fieldwork is first and foremost about understanding lives, both his and theirs. Hayano's personal narrative involving the Awa explores issues of rapid culture change, interpersonal squabbles, lying and deceit, adultery, sorcery, and unexpected death.
7. See Judith Okely and Helen Callaway eds., Anthropology and Autobiography (London: Routledge, 1992).
8. Sidney Mintz, A Worker in the Cane: A Puerto Rican Life history (New York: Norton, 1960).
9. Marjorie Shostack, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman (New York: Vintage, 1981).
10. Sidney Mintz, "The Anthropological Interview and the Life History," Oral History Review (1979), No. 7, pp. 131-139.
11. Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. ix.
12. Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (1980), Ibid., p. xi.
13. Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (1980), Ibid., p. xii.
14. Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (1980), Ibid., p. 51.
15. Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957).
16. Crapanzano, Tuhami, p. 8.
17. Crapanzano, Tuhami, Ibid., p. 9.
18. Crapanzano, Tuhami, Ibid., p. 11.
19. Crapanzano, Tuhami, Ibid., p. 23.
20. Virginia Woolf, "The New Biography," in Andrew McNeillie ed., The Essays of Virginia Woolf Vol. 4: 1925-1928 (London: Hogarth Press, 1994), p. 477.
21. Ibid., pp. 477-478.
22. For example, see E. Anne Beal, "Reflections on Ethnography in Morocco," Critique of Anthropology (1995), Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 289-304.
23. I am not problematizing Rigoberta here in regarding its verifiability; my concern rests with intra-textual analysis as it was originally published. Hence, the recent revision of our appreciation of Rigoberta as a text with too heavy an editorial intervention should not interfere with my discussion. True-or-false verification of a testimonial, in other words, rests beyond the scope of this article. As for Rigoberta's own reflection on the interview, see Alice Britten, "Close Encounters of the Third World Kind: Rigoberta Menchú and Elisabeth Burgos's Me Ilamo Rigoberta Menchú," Latin American Perspectives (1995), Issue 87, Vol. 22, November 4, pp. 100-114.
24. Elisabeth Burgos-Debray ed., I Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (London: Verso, 1984), p. 1.
25. I Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala 1984), Ibid., pp. xi-xii.
26. The recent and perhaps most fundamental refutation of Rigoberta's testimony comes from David Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Boulder: Westview Press, 1999). See text below.
27. Claudia Salazar, "A Third World Woman's Text: Between the Politics of Criticism and Cultural Politics," in Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai eds., The Feminist Practice of Oral History (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 93.
28. Claudia Salazar, "A Third World Woman's Text: Between the Politics of Criticism and Cultural Politics," in The Feminist Practice of Oral History 1994), Ibid., p. 99.
29. Claudia Salazar, "A Third World Woman's Text: Between the Politics of Criticism and Cultural Politics," in The Feminist Practice of Oral History 1994), p. 99.Ibid.
30. Claudia Salazar, "A Third World Woman's Text: Between the Politics of Criticism and Cultural Politics," in The Feminist Practice of Oral History 1994), Ibid., p. 100.
31. Burgos-Debray, Rigoberta, p. 247.
32. Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú.
33. Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú.Ibid., p. 188.
34. Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú.p. 188.Ibid.
35. I have a reservation about Stoll's method. He counterinterviews individuals whose statements contradict Rigoberta's. Logically, there is no necessity to privilege others' voices over Rigoberta's, or vice versa. It seems to be that this is a case where project or the eventual text acquired its own life that in a way wielded power over author and testifier. The attention needs to be paid to the field of readership and sociohistorical condition that brought about that particular reading. Stoll explores these, but the reliance on his own field data as "truth" is somewhat out of balance, since every experienced anthropologist knows that in the fieldwork situation, interview data should be taken as discursive, rather than empirical or factual as such.
36. Stoll, I, Rigoberta Menchú, p. 185.
37. Mintz, "the Anthropological Interview," p. 24.
38. Among the revisited texts in this connection was Paul Rabinow, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), which is, being reflective rather than reflexive, and excellent at that, different from recent texts obsessed with the self.
39. Kirsten Hastrup, "Writing Ethnography: State of the Art," in Judith Okely and Helen Callaway eds., Anthropology and Autobiography (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 117.
40. Kirsten Hastrup, "Writing Anthropology and Autobiography 1992), Ibid., p. 120.
41. Kirsten Hastrup, "Writing Anthropology and Autobiography 1992), Ibid., p. 117.
42. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition (New York: Doubleday, 1995), pp. 7-8.
43. "Foreword," The Diary of a Young Girl, pp. v-viii.
44. Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset (New York: Penguin, 1995).
45. Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset (1995).Ibid., p. 16.
46. Ma Bo, Blood Red Sunset (1995).Ibid., p. 17.
47. Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú, pp. 181-183.
48. John Sturrock, "Theory Versus Autobiography," in Robert Folkenflik ed., The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 30. Original italicizations.
49. See Sonia Ryang, "Native Anthropology and Other Problems," Dialectical Anthropology (1997), No. 22, pp. 23-49. This issue of Dialectical Anthropology is a collection of essays on native anthropology.
50. Ruth Behar, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).
51. Dorinne Kondo, Crafting Selves: Power, Gender, and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
52. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, pp. 19-20.
53. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, Ibid., p. 19.
54. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, Ibid., p. 24.
55. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, Ibid., p. 137.
56. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, Ibid., p. 139.
57. Behar, Vulnerable Observer, p. 139.Ibid.