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, neo-colonialism, 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?