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).
writing started to be conceived
not only as a method
• influenced by politics,
• intentionality,
• positionality,
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:
• ethnography decodes and recodes trough its:
literary power
• literary processes affects: 1. cultural
phenomena 2. audience
literary processes
• metaphor,
• figuration,
• narrative style
CONTRADICTION BETWEEN
SCIENCE AND LITERATURE
• Literary texts • Science
• metaphorical • experimental
• Allegorical • emperical
• Emotional • “objective”
• speculative • ontological
• Subjectivity
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)
A current trend in ethnographic
writing
• the subject matter
• the medium
• method
• intention
Why do you think the interpretive
approach to cultural anthropology
has become the most influential
perspective in the last 20 years of
anthropology? Name five
different reasons.