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Theoretical Sociology
Writing culture
Lecture 10
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Lecture Plan
Part 1: Writing culture debates
Part 2: Feminist critique
Part 3: Between a Melanesanist and a feminist
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Writing culture: new ethnographies
(1980s / 1990s)
The new ethnographygrounded in the aims
of anthropology to challenge western
knowledge as the norm through exploration of
non-western forms of understanding
Inspired by Edward Saidaim is to challenge
the way in which anthropology has
represented non-western others
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Traditionally anthropologists in classical textspositioned themselves as authorities and the soleauthors of their text (Malinowski, MargaretMead, Linhart etc..)
They are the observing Western eye writingabout the non-Western other
Anthropologist has authority to write a coherentseamless narrative about others
The experience and process of writing aboutpeople who different to themselves rarelyreflected upon in the 1980s
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Clifford writes:
The subjectivity of the author is separatedfrom the objective referent of the text. At
best, the authors personal voice is seen as astyle in the weak sense: a tone, orembellishment of the facts. Moreover, theactual field experience of the ethnographer ispresented only in very stylised ways (i.e. thearrival stories) (1986: 13)
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Challenging this representation of
difference
Key authors James Clifford & George Marcuschallenge this representation of difference
Key text Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics
of Ethnography(focus on here) edited bookbased on a seminar at Santa Fe
This represents what called the reflexive andliterary turn in anthropology
A challenge to the way in which anthropologistsrepresent differenceothernessnon-Westernpeoples in globalised world
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The context of the critique in the
1980s / 1990s
This in a world in which of indigenousanthropologists insiders studying their owncultures
Anthropologist appear in legal proceedings forexample indigenous land claims, in advertisingcampaigns etc
A global world whereby cultural hybridity andpeople not isolated: McDonaldisation; Coca-
colaisation A postcolonial worldwhereby Edward Saids
critique of imperial knowledge influential
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The context of the critique continue
No longer study non-Western post-colonial
people without examining power relation with
west and non-west
Production of Western knowledge about the
other is about the self
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The focus on the text: writing culture
Focus here - the end of textual authorityof theanthropologist in the writing of ethnography
No longer the objective social scientists reporting the worldof the other through the detached process of participant
observation Emphasis is upon the complexities in the production of the
ethnographic text and that means self-reflexivity about theprocess of doing fieldwork
Who speaks, who writes, when and where, with or to
whom, under what institutional and historical constraints Key break through here publication of Malinowskis private
diariescomplex and intricate relations with the people hestudies that screened out in his ethnographic account
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The literary turn
Language and its meaning is open to multipleinterpretations
Language is about power and politics
The authority of the ethnographer asfieldwork is contested
Knowledge and representation of so-called
others is about power relations between thewestern anthropologist and the non-westernpeople studied
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Language and the text
Emphasis upon new styles of writing to include the other inthe text and expose power relations of difference
Multiple voices in the textan interplay of voices
Polyvocalitydialogue of voices in the context of fieldwork informants as co-authors
Ethnographer as scribe, archivist as well as interpretingobserver
This dialogue involves powernecessity to be reflexive of the
power relations between the observer and the observedrendered transparent
Taking seriously that any representation of difference is aboutthe self
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New writing styles
Thus anthropologists implored to use new writingstyles to produce text that challenge traditionalrepresentations of non-Western difference andotherness by the Western anthropologist rooted in a
colonial past
E.g. Nisa: the life of a !Kung Woman: Marjorie Shostakjuxtaposes her voice with that of a !kung woman toshow two different interpretations
Kevin Dwyer in Moroccan Dialoguesshows the text tobe a production between himself and a Moroccanfarmer
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Postmodern politics: partial truths
Even the best ethnographic texts serious,
true fictionsare systems, or economies, of
truth. Power and history work through them,
in ways their authors cannot fully control
Ethnographic truths are thus inherentlypartial
committed and incomplete (Clifford 1986:
7)
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Here we have the idea looked at last week from
feminist (point return to below)
That there is no gods eye view
For the anthropologist: in ethnographic fieldwork
can not capture the wholeno such standpoint
in reality
Writing the textanthropologists leave outirrelevant personal and historical circumstances
that do not fit the narrative/ argument
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External and self-imposed limits to all research
what makes it good research
Informants will leave out information of
talking to the ethnographer
Key is to be reflexive on what left out, what
not included and the power dynamics
involved in the politics of representation
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Ethnographers are more and more like the
Cree hunter who (the story goes) came to
Montreal to testify in court concerning the
fate of his hunting lands. He would describe
his way of life. But when administered the
oath he hesitated: Im not sure I can tell the
truth I can only tell what I know. (Clifford 1986: 8)
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The feminist critique
Clifford in his introduction to writing culture
claims:
Feminist theorizing is obviously of great potential
significance for rethinking ethnographic writing. It
debates the historical, political construction of
identities and self/other relations, and it probesthe gendered positions that make all accounts of,
or by other people inescapably partial (1986: 19)
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So why is a feminist perspective missing from
this important book on writing culture:
Clifford writes:
Feminism has not contributed much to the
theoretical analysis of ethnographies as texts
(1986: 20).
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Feminist critique of writing culture
(see Mascia-Lees, Sharpe & Cohen) Feminist perspectives crucial to the central ideas that
inform writing culture and the reflexive turn
the authority of the author central to feminist critique ofhegemonic forms of theorising
power involved in the construction of difference (gender,class, ethnic, sexual differences) central to feminist theory
The construction of the female as other central to feministtheory from its conception
The use of literary and experimental styles to counter
hegemonic representations of women (i.e. as seductress /subordinate to men and so on) central to feminism
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Feminist argue why then do those involved in writingculture LOOK TO postmodernism for their inspirationand NOT TO feminism
Whybecause Clifford, Marcus et al misunderstand
the complexities of feminist theory Irony Clifford draws on Nisa: a !Kung woman in his
essay in the writing culture volume (key feministethnography)
To show polyvocality and engagement with the otherin the production of the text
Therefore shows his desire not to include feministsapolitical agenda of exclusion
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Argument is that Clifford and his co-writers want to give the
impression that their approach is uniquelike colonial
explorerswhen in reality they are covering old ground
trodden by feminists
Emphasis upon postmodernism is also critiqued
Postmodernism critiques the idea of an objective truth reality
to favour multiple perspectives, meanings and interpretations
Feminist find it ironic that postmodernism popular in the
1980s when postcolonial people and women gaining a voice
They contend the emphasis on contested truth in
postmodernism shared by feminist but they grounded in
politics (equality for women) in the way postmodernism not
grounded in political standpoint
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Also argued that this whole writing culture
and reflexive turn about jobs for the boys
who has tenure who part of the establishment
and so about institutional power in the
academy
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Strathern: between a Melanesianist
and a feminist
For Strathern there is a disjunction/ awkward
relationship between feminist knowledge and
anthropological knowledge
Feminism travels between disciplinesempowering those who align with it
Strathern draws upon feminist knowledge in her
work (unlike Clifford et al) It is Strathernsengagement with this knowledge
as an anthropologist that concerns her
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I can not substitute feminism for
anthropology or vice-versa, listen to one and
forget the other. At the same time, each
constitutes a position from which to regard acounter position each side affords a
position from which to see the other
(1991: 35Partial Connections)
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The relationship between feminism & anthropologybecomes:
A single perspective seen twice (1991: 113)
In this way feminism becomes an aid or tool for Strathernas an anthropologist
it introduces thoughts she might never wise have had
But there remains a disjunction between what she learnsabout the world of Melanesian people as an anthropologist
and what she learns about the world from Westernfeminists
these knowledges like the duck and the rabbitfigure andground (explore in more detail now)
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Deconstruction and displacement
Feminist place emphasis on deconstruction
That is showing the social construction of
social truths and texts
Revealing the socio-historical nature of their
construction to illuminate alternative practices
Taking things apart
Bringing to the surface what is not said and so
on
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Feminist notion of deconstruction
This practice of deconstruction underpinned
by a particular cultural conception of the
world
From this view: culture and language learnt in
the process of socialisation
As the body grows so ones knowledge of
culture and language develops
This the process of socialisation
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So feminists can argue that culture is incomplete whenwomens body processes do not correspond to dominantideologies learnt in the process of socialisation
For example - womens bodily waste should be constrainedto the private sphere, pregnancy is about the privatesphere and menopause is a private issue (hegemonic view)
But this view of world is negotiated by women whileengaging the public sphere
In this way women make an absence a kind of presence
Our experiences of pregnancy, menopause etc.. Challenge anotion that all of this is about the private sphere
we complicate that division in our lived experiences of ourbodies
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And the challenging of a kind of absencethrough our experience reflects the way inwhich you might take a text apart to reveal
hidden meanings And so un-do certain social values in order to
find reasons for constructing alternative ones
And find that as feminist we continue thispracticemulti-layers of text and also cultureare taken apart
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Mekeo perspective on deconstruction
Mekeopeople from central province of Papua NewGuinea
Do not conceive the relation between culture, bodyand language in this way
Do not look inside culture, language and the body tofind hidden meaningsto reveal absencesratherhave a process of displacement
Not understand culture as learnt in the process ofsocialisationso not something whereby layers andmeaning can be peeled away later
Child is born complete with sociality immanent (1992: 74)
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Mekeo conceives a foetus on the outside of herbody to be displaced to the inside
Look inside a bush not to find more insidemore bush but becomes displaced to reveal
what it is not the outside the village So no infinite regressionno hidden meaning
but displacement
In this way, the feminist notion of deconstructiondoes not capture and explain Melanesianpeoples understandings of the world and sociallife
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To summarise
She has a feminist understanding ofdeconstructionwhich relates to the reading oftexts, the body and socialisation
We learn things and can take them apart to findhidden meanings
As we can a textthis a feminist perspective
However Mekeo people dont see the world inthat way as something to be taken apartratherdisplacementno hidden meanings
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In her writing then she conceives her
relationship between a feminist and a
Melanesianist as awkward, figure: ground, a
single perspective seen twiceshe can only
think of a Melanesian perspective in this way
because she has the contrast to a feministperspective
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She writes:
figure and ground work as two dimensions.They are self scalingnot two perspectives as
it were, but one perspective seen twice,ground as another figure, figure as anotherground. Since each behaves as an invariant inrelation to the other, the dimensions are not
constituted in any totalising way (Strathern1991L 113)
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To end with paraphrasing Donna Haraway - a
feminist who ideas Strathern believes are
good to think with:
one (perspective) is too few and two is too
many
(Haraway 1991: 117)
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Questions
What do the debates about writing culture tell
us about the experience of writing social
research?
What issues does this debate raise about theposition of the sociologist / anthropologist in
relation to the people with who they research?
Why were feminist angry with this critique?
Why does Strathern find the relationship
between feminists and anthropologists awkward?
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