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1001:2021:13 [2021/05/30 01:18] – Ryan Schram (admin)1001:2021:13 [2021/06/01 00:06] (current) – [How might ethnography speak to its own object?] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 Week of May 31, 2021 (Week 13) Week of May 31, 2021 (Week 13)
  
-Slides available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2700/2021/13+Slides available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1001/2021/13
  
  
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-====== Who reads ethnographies? ======+===== Who reads ethnographies? =====
  
 Here’s another story about Auhelawa susu and their tetela: Here’s another story about Auhelawa susu and their tetela:
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 Many people in Auhelawa wanted me to collect everyone’s tetela, and decide which were right and which were wrong. Many people in Auhelawa wanted me to collect everyone’s tetela, and decide which were right and which were wrong.
  
-====== Scholarship is accountable to its audiences, but who are anthropologyʻs audiences? ======+===== Scholarship is accountable to its audiences, but who are anthropologyʻs audiences? =====
  
 Anthropologists do not practice anthropology in Cloud-cuckoo-land. Anthropologists do not practice anthropology in Cloud-cuckoo-land.
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 Who are our audiences? Who are our audiences?
  
-====== Salvage anthropology ======+===== Salvage anthropology =====
  
 Franz Boas is an important founding figure of cultural anthropology in the United States, and is responsible for the concept of culture as a shared world view. For Boas, culture is Franz Boas is an important founding figure of cultural anthropology in the United States, and is responsible for the concept of culture as a shared world view. For Boas, culture is
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   * Though a minority, some still do salvage anthropology (or “urgent anthropology”). Is there a good reason for this to be done?   * Though a minority, some still do salvage anthropology (or “urgent anthropology”). Is there a good reason for this to be done?
  
-====== Scientific expertise ======+===== Scientific expertise =====
  
 Like other fields, many anthropologists have claimed that they had expertise as scientists of human societies and their cultures. Like other fields, many anthropologists have claimed that they had expertise as scientists of human societies and their cultures.
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 For the most part, colonial governments had little interest in anthropologists’ studies (see Kuper 1973). For the most part, colonial governments had little interest in anthropologists’ studies (see Kuper 1973).
  
-====== Theories of society ======+===== Theories of society =====
  
 As more people were trained as ethnographers in the Boasian or Malinowskian sense, anthropology became a profession As more people were trained as ethnographers in the Boasian or Malinowskian sense, anthropology became a profession
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 Yet, at the same time, this view relies on a faith in rationality, and a faith in people’s capacity to control the world through reason alone. It belongs to a specific period in world history. Yet, at the same time, this view relies on a faith in rationality, and a faith in people’s capacity to control the world through reason alone. It belongs to a specific period in world history.
  
-====== Anthropology as critique ======+===== Anthropology as critique =====
  
 Anthropologists do not all want to be scientists, although many want to remove themselves from society. Anthropologists do not all want to be scientists, although many want to remove themselves from society.
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 Should anthropology then have another kind of audience, the people that are described in ethnography? Should anthropology then have another kind of audience, the people that are described in ethnography?
  
-====== The injustices that research ethics cannot solve ======+ 
 + 
 + 
 +===== The injustices that research ethics cannot solve =====
  
   * No society exists in isolation.   * No society exists in isolation.
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   * Rather than talk about what we shouldn’t do in research, let’s talk about ethical value of learning about each other’s differences.   * Rather than talk about what we shouldn’t do in research, let’s talk about ethical value of learning about each other’s differences.
  
-====== “Ethnographic refusal” ======+===== “Ethnographic refusal” =====
  
 Some argue that the “primitive isolate” image in ethnography is not only a distortion, but represents an ethical failure of anthropologists to document and critique forms of inequality and oppression experienced by the people they study. Some argue that the “primitive isolate” image in ethnography is not only a distortion, but represents an ethical failure of anthropologists to document and critique forms of inequality and oppression experienced by the people they study.
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   * By contrast, Sherry Ortner speaks of an “ethnographic refusal.” Ortner means specifically the refusal by an anthropologist to emphasize the emic perspective over an etic perspective (Ortner 1995)   * By contrast, Sherry Ortner speaks of an “ethnographic refusal.” Ortner means specifically the refusal by an anthropologist to emphasize the emic perspective over an etic perspective (Ortner 1995)
     * Ortner’s concept of ethnographic refusal is when an anthropologist foregrounds the effects of colonialism and integration with the global system of capitalism as an explanation for people’s contemporary life, and refuses to look at these experiences in emic terms as part of a particular worldview.     * Ortner’s concept of ethnographic refusal is when an anthropologist foregrounds the effects of colonialism and integration with the global system of capitalism as an explanation for people’s contemporary life, and refuses to look at these experiences in emic terms as part of a particular worldview.
-    * One example is the way people talk about so-called “cargo cults” in PNG. Are they an example of “episodic time” or do they represent people’s resistance to colonial domination (Billings 2002; Burridge 1954; Errington 1974; Robbins 2004; Kaplan 1995; Lattas 2007; McDowell 1988)?+    * One example is the way people talk about so-called “cargo cults” in PNG. Are they an example of “episodic time” or do they represent people’s resistance to colonial domination (Billings 2002; Burridge 1954; Errington 1974; Jebens 2004; Kaplan 1995; Lattas 2007; McDowell 1988)?
  
-====== How might ethnography speak to its own object? ======+===== Ships passing in the night =====
  
-More recently, scholars have revived this label and argued for a positive interpretation of refusal. When they use the term, they mean refusal to represent specific topics in pubilshed academic ethnographic writings, and instead collaborate with their informants on ways to for them to speak for themselves and create knowledge about themselves that is valuable for their community (Simpson 2007) * Intellectual ownership * Secrecy * Refusal to make people into ethnographic objects+There is an irony in the history of anthropology. 
 + 
 +Most research in anthropology today is conducted in a critical mode. 
 + 
 +  * Most anthropologists want their work to “speak truth to power” (American Friends Service Committee 1955). 
 +  * Most ethnography written today seeks to situate the object of description in a larger, even global, context. The ethnographer of today writes against a fictional “ethnographic present.” 
 + 
 +And yet, many other critical social sciences have ethnography envy. 
 + 
 +  * Many people outside of anthropology think classical ethnographic writing, particularly the kind that seeks to capture a distinct emic perspective, is a great way to do engaged, political work that advocates for change, or “action research.” 
 + 
 +===== Feminist “participatory action research” is ethnography ===== 
 + 
 +Consider what feminist sociologist Shulamit Reinharz says about participatory action research: 
 + 
 +> In feminist participatory research, the distinction between the researcher(s) and those on whom the research is done disappears. To achieve an egalitarian relation, the researcher abandons control and adopts an approach of openness, reciprocity, mutual disclosure, and shared risk. Differences in social status and background give way as shared decision-making and self-disclosure develop. (Reinharz 1992, 181) 
 + 
 +For her, participatory research means the researcher: 
 + 
 +  * “abandons control” 
 +  * strives for “an egalitarian relation” 
 +  * relies on mutual trust between researcher and researched. 
 + 
 +Sound familiar? 
 + 
 +===== Participatory research has been treated skeptically in anthropology ===== 
 + 
 +Anthropologists are always skeptical. They like the idea of activist research, since they generally want to do good for their research subjects, but they question whether it’s possible 
 + 
 +  * “In ‘community-based’ research, how do you know who is included and excluded from this community?” 
 +  * “Who speaks for this community? How do you know you’re not just be co-opted by the ‘loudspeakers’ in the community?” 
 +  * “What are the unintended consequences?” 
 + 
 +===== How might ethnography speak to its own object? ===== 
 + 
 +More recently, scholars have revived Ortner’s skeptical label of “ethnographic refusal” and argued for a positive interpretation. 
 + 
 +When they use the term, they mean refusal to represent specific topics in pubilshed academic ethnographic writings, and instead collaborate with their informants on ways to for them to speak for themselves and create knowledge about themselves that is valuable for their community (Simpson 2007)  
 + 
 +* Intellectual ownership  
 +* Secrecy  
 +* Refusal to make people into ethnographic objects 
 + 
 +===== What makes community-led research successful? ===== 
 + 
 +Indigenous-controlled and directed research has only grown since Christen’s work on this topic. But it seems like there are several crucial elements that have to be present for it to work. 
 + 
 +  * The community that directs the research on itself, and may even commission the research project, usually already has some degree of political recognition as an autonomous body, and has its own institutions to exercise its rights of self-determination in a larger sphere. 
 +  * Like all communities, it already generates knowledge of itself. In community-led research, people have also developed a consciousness of themselves as a community and can thus more effectively communicate their knowledge of themselves to others, including 
 +    * the dominant society in which they are embedded 
 +    * networks of communities, scholars, and activists with similar identities and in similar situations. 
 + 
 +Does a community that has empowered itself to create, transmit, and develop its own knowledge of itself even need anthropologists to help it create new knowledge? 
 + 
 +Would becoming an anthropologist of oneself and one’s own community be the best way to know yourself? 
 + 
 +===== References and further reading ===== 
 + 
 +American Friends Service Committee. 1955. //Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence//. Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee. http://www.quaker.org/sttp.html.
  
-====== References ====== 
  
 Bell, Kirsten. 2014. “Resisting Commensurability: Against Informed Consent as an Anthropological Virtue.” //American Anthropologist// 116 (3): 511–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12122. Bell, Kirsten. 2014. “Resisting Commensurability: Against Informed Consent as an Anthropological Virtue.” //American Anthropologist// 116 (3): 511–22. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.12122.
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 Errington, Frederick. 1974. “Indigenous Ideas of Order, Time, and Transition in a New Guinea Cargo Movement.” //American Ethnologist// 1 (2): 255–67. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1974.1.2.02a00030. Errington, Frederick. 1974. “Indigenous Ideas of Order, Time, and Transition in a New Guinea Cargo Movement.” //American Ethnologist// 1 (2): 255–67. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1974.1.2.02a00030.
 +
 +
 +Jebens, Holger, ed. 2004. //Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique//. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. http://books.google.com?id=F5v7UD4FOigC.
  
  
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-Pels, Peter. 1999. “Professions of Duplexity: A Prehistory of Ethical Codes in Anthropology.” //Current Anthropology// 40 (2): 101–36. https://doi.org/10.1086/200001.+Ortner, Sherry B. 1995. “Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal.” //Comparative Studies in Society and History// 37 (1): 173–93. http://www.jstor.org/stable/179382.
  
  
-Robbins, Joel. 2004. “On the Critique in Cargo and the Cargo in Critique: Toward a Comparative Anthropology of Critical Practice.” In //Cargo, Cult, and Culture Critique//, edited by Holger Jebens, 243–60. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.+Pels, Peter. 1999. “Professions of Duplexity: A Prehistory of Ethical Codes in Anthropology.” //Current Anthropology// 40 (2): 101–36. https://doi.org/10.1086/200001.
  
  
-Simpson, Audra. 2007. “On Ethnographic Refusal: Indigeneity, ‘Voice’ and Colonial Citizenship.” //Junctures// 9: 67–80.+Reinharz, Shulamit. 1992. //Feminist Methods in Social Research//. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://archive.org/details/feministmethodsi0000rein.
  
  
 +Simpson, Audra. 2007. “On Ethnographic Refusal: Indigeneity, ‘Voice’ and Colonial Citizenship.” //Junctures// 9: 67–80.
1001/2021/13.1622362705.txt.gz · Last modified: 2021/05/30 01:18 by Ryan Schram (admin)