Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography

piece of compose cultivation the Poetics and regime of EthnographyIntroductionDuring the 25 stratums since the publication of musical composition flori subtlety the poetics and political relation of ethnography, a great deal of discussion has accompanied it. In this stress I start this keep back in the scene of the literary turn in anthropology, and concern with the postcolonial encounter as well. Through forth the abstract of the of import themes in the defy, attention is paid to the tress of ethnographicalal warrant and two alliances of ethnographer/reader and ethnographer/informant centered in w service material ending. The es produce too provides a perspective of the influential great big businessman of the reserve by presenting some ethnographies conducted by Chinese anthropologists. Finally, I get out contend the risks of the textualism disposition and opposite patterns in compose market-gardening approach.Background of the Book In and Beyond Ant hropologyMore than ten years subsequently the publication of authorship elaboration, in a review article, George Marcus (19985) quoted Schneiders words referring to the bookI dont suppose Jim Clifford is illustrious for his monograph on Leenhardt. I dont think that George Marcus has achieved some nonoriety because he cut backed on Tonga. Indeed, I dont know anybody whos read the ethnography he wrote. In fact, Ive often talked to people and asked them, Hay, have you read George Marcuss ethnography? No- yet I read that other damn book.It is a very typical and interest comwork forcet. As an anthropologist, George Marcus is best remembered for editing the collection of essays rather than his hold ethnographic work and similarly, James Clifford, a historian, is frequently regarded as an anthropologist by fight of being the editor of the same book. The comment in addition reveals that the book is controversial, and it has witnessed harshly criticism after its appearance. Howe ver, in that respect is no denying that Writing Culture is wiz of the most crucial books throughout the history of anthropology-the milest superstar of the post-modern era and the buns of the experimental ethnography (Gao 2007, Scholte 1987).1. The literary turnThere is nonhing outdoor(a) the text. (Derrida)The book, with eleven essays in it (including the introduction and afterword), is based on a series of seminars at the School of Ameri bathroom Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the join States of America in April 1984(Clifford and Marcus 1985). By taking the making of ethnographic text (Clifford and Marcus 1986vii) as the focal point of their seminars, the smashicipants non only viewed WRITING as a elementary method, simply besides the central issue of brotherly heathen anthropology. Ethnographic composing is then critically projectd in aspects of cordial context, the use of cajolery devises, the limitations of disciplinary traditions, the definition of its gen re, the policy-making network, and historical transformations.1 wherefore is writing be approach a principle thing in anthropology? In order to answer this interrogatory, inevitably, we take into consideration the literary turn, or say textualism trend in anthropology in the mid-eighties. The literary turn, just as its earn implies, by taking text, writing and literary devices as key concepts and employing textual and literary analyses, is a radical shift which provides strikingly divers(prenominal) epistemic and methodological approaches in the discipline of anthropology (Scholte 1987). Although it is difficult to figure out whether Writing Culture is more a cause or a outlet of the literary turn, the book is definitely a key ingredient of it. I would further counsel that Levi-Strauss, Geertz and Writing Culture should be considered as a sequence in the context of the literary turn.What the Writing Culture authors claim, much(prenominal) as the diversity of representation s, possibilities of interpretations, at a glance, ar totally take issueent from Levi-Strausss pure unity, reduced models and deep culture grammar. At the same time, Levi-Strausss fond sense of symbol and intend within a symbolic lecture system and his linguistic analogy approach (Barrett 1996) argon valuable legacies to Geertz and Writing Culture. Furthermore, his research on mythology threw fresh light on the interdisciplinary studies crosswise anthropology and literature. Then, Geertz, who is profoundly moldd by Levi-Strauss and Weber, has a more important and complex influence on Writing Culture. Firstly, his concern of anthropological interpretations and thick interpretations, fieldwork and post fieldwork, (Geertz 19751983) provided the bottom for Writing Culture explorations. Secondly, Geertzs local acquaintance, natives point of view (Geertz 19751983) and assertion of an winning and intelligible style inspired Writing Culture authors to portray fieldwork as a dialogi cal approach, and consequently take the interactions of ethnographers/the indigenous people (Barrett 1996) and ethnographers/readers in to account. tercely, Geertzs ethnographies became important materials of Writing Culture2. Postcolonial encounter and ethnic RepresentationI employ to rule the sphere Seas would rise when I gave the word Now in the morning I sweep alone Sweep the streets I employ to own One minute I held the key Next the walls were closed(a) on me And I discovered that my castles stand Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sandLyrics of viva la Vida (Cold adjoin 2009)The birth of this book is not narrowly concerned with the inheritance and development of theory and methodology within the discipline, but rather deep rooted in the historical background and the reconstruction among the entire academician community.As an academic discipline, anthropology is developed in the context of imperialism and colonialism. The long-time contact amidst European conquerors and the colonists dramatis personaed forms of power and knowledge, and anthropologists at that time entered into non-European aboriginal communities as observers and describers (Asad 2002). Anthropology narrated power traffic at the same time it was also potentially counter-hegemonic (Clifford 19869). In eighties, which was the postcolonial and postwar era without the umbrella of the colonial power, anthropology started to face a more complex nexus of power dealing. The postcolonial situation affected the main interests of anthropology and challenged the business office of ethnography. Moreover, anthropology from then on, was not only carried out by Europeans and Ameri cannisters, but also by those from the so-called Third World who were studying their own cultures and neither Western culture nor the non-Western cultures remained the same in the ever-changing world (Clifford 1986, Layton 1997). In Writing Culture, the analyses of ethnographic addresss- asking who speaks? who writes? when and where? with or to whom? under what institutional and historical constrains?(Clifford 1986)-is a repercussion of the postcolonial encounter.Another important feature of the 1980s is the increasing flow of so-called postmodernism in academia-grand memorial was abandoned and lucubrate of everyday action took their place. Accordingly, singular culture was replaced by the plural one, and cultures were still as representations and knowledge and man with a small m took place of Man with variability. More importantly, the act upon of rethinking cultural representation again called into oral sex the authenticity of representation itself and Writing Culture elegantly captured the main themes in this discussion.Three Main Themes of the BookIn general, Writing Culture is an introspection, which attempts to examine anthropology traditions (especially the traditional ethnography) as well as anthropologists themselves. I will search tierce main themes in the reflections.1. Partial rightfulnessKnowledge is power,and that one must never reveal all of what one knows.Saramaka folktale, in cost (198314) cited in Clifford (19867)The most essential and fundamental point in Writing Culture is the questioning of ethnographic authenticity. In the 1920s, ethnography was defined and open not only as a genre of cultural description depending on intensive participant observation (Clifford 1983), but also a main research method internalised as a academic criterion in the field of anthropology (Gao 2006). This new style of ethnography-scientific ethnography, built by Malinowski, investigated the nitty-gritty of culture with a holistic view and documented different layers of ethnographic reality(Kuper 1996). About 50 years later, the theorizing of ethnographic realism sprung up. In 1977, capital of Minnesota Rabinow, who is a contributor of Writing Culture, published his book Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. His rabble-rousing descriptions of the fieldwork itself and his own feelings in the field reveal that fieldwork is a process of intersubjective construction of liminal modes of communication (1977155) which forever and a day involves valuation, and the ethnographer is not a objective observer but a real person with self-consciousness and trustworthy cultural background who makes and remakes facts. Unlike the revelations of Malinowskis fieldwork dairy and the Mead-Freeman controversy, anthropologists started to look at themselves consciously and pondered-what is the ethnographic truth.This issue has been argued throughout the book. Take for example Vincent Crapanzanos Hermess Dilemma The Masking of depravation in Ethnographic Description (1986) he analyses one-third ethnographic texts by George Catlin, Wolfgang von Goethe and Clifford Geertz to probe how does the ethnographer make his/her work convincing. The three authors use distinctive figures, viz. hypotyposis, external theatrical narrativity and interpretive virtuosity, to convince the readers of the descriptions in their texts. He argues that, as a matter of fact, their rhetoric tools make the described events devoiced from the original settings, and finally, it is the ethnographers position which covers the subversion up. However, the ethnographers authority-his/her presence, perceptual ability, disinterested perspective, objectivity and sincerity (198653), is questionable. Does being there mean witnessing everything? Is the perceptual ability trained in a certain culture adequate and reliable? Is disinterested perspective or objectivity even possible? If not, how can one reach the whole truth by selected fragmentary information? The underlying institutional system and power recountings work through all these issues and enmesh in the anthropological knowledge, not to mention the cultural filtering, the information is not completed at the source. Crapanzanos essay reminds us that the ethnographer, like Hermes who decodes and interprets messages, p romised to tell no lies but did not promise to tell the whole truth (198676). From this perspective, ethnographic truth no long-term pursues the true view of the whole world, as Clifford and Rabinow point out in the book, ethnographic truths ar partial, committed and incomplete (Clifford 19867) and in gyves to cultural settings.2. Literary devicesAll constructed truths are made possible by powerful lies of exclusion and rhetoric.As I have mentioned before, Writing Culture is related to the literary turn of anthropology with the foundation of see ethnographies as texts. It is slowly to point out that another major theme of the book is the literary devices employed in ethnographies, and in which the rhetoric issue has been mostly discussed. For instance, Renato Rosaldos From the admission of His Tent The Fieldworker and the Inquisitor (1986), by comparing The Nure written by Evens Pritchard with Montaillou written by French favorable historian Ladurie, demonstrates how ethnogra phic rhetoric could help in building authority and objectivity. Needless to repeat, The Nure is a ethnographic masterpiece, and for Montaillou, it is famous for providing an ethnographic synopsis of a French community in fourteenth century by using inquisition record.Rosaldo states that, in the graduation place, in the introductory section, by frankly acknowledging the inequality amid the inquisitor / his subjects, the fieldworker/ the Nuer, the authors twain indicate the calm presence of mind(198689) then, they style themselves as honest men through complaining close the difficulties in gaining information in sickening tensions betwixt investigators and informants. aft(prenominal) that, they claim their information is gradually collected in particles in order to construct the reliability meanwhile, distanced normalizing mode of discourse, rhetorical absences2, correspondences3, and so forth are used to enhance the sense of objectivity. In sum, the rhetorical work in introdu ctory parts of the two books by means of separating the context of colonial domination from the production of ethnographic knowledge (198693)establish the authors innocence and the ethnographic authority as well. Furthermore, in both authors, the pastoral mode is invoked. The literary mode of pastoral is, firstly a symbol of the spiritual liberty, indorsement a mobile position of speaking, and thirdly a label of ingenuity and respect. Rosaldos essay interestingly illustrates that, although the power and knowledge relations have not been completely kicked off, to a great extent, they are concealed by the rhetoric tools. Ethnographic rhetoric has a strong advert on the understandings of the ethnographic texts (Scholte 1987).3. Writing of SelfContinued from the preceding paragraph, the mobility in ethnographers positions is demonstrated cumulatively in other chapters of Writing Culture as well. Fieldwork in super acid Places by Mary Louis Pratt (1986) provides an illustration.Her e ssay focuses on the significant history of the relationship between personal narrative and impersonal description (198627) in ethnographies and plump writings. Pratt starts with a controversy that anthropology graduate Florinda Donners work Shabobo A True encounter in the Remote and Magical Heart of the South American jungle is facing accusations of plagiarism, because there are some events in her book which are the same as others. Here, Pratt asks a very inspiring question as ethnography demands accurate descriptions, for describing the same events at the same place, how could Donners work not resemble others? Pratt argues that the authority of ethnography, in some sense, is based on the whimsical and original personal experience in the field not the actual accuracy (198629) of a certain ethnography.From this perspective, personal narratives cannot be eliminated from ethnography, and it also explains why the subgenre of dress ethnography, such as Malinowskis diaries, has not b een killed by science (198631), but turned into a prolonged tradition of anthropology. Even in formal ethnographies, personal narrative is an integral part. It marks the relationship among the fieldworker, indigenous people, and the audience. It also serves as a regulator, reconciling the inconsistency between the subjective engagement in fieldwork, and the detachment the self-effacement in formal ethnographic writing. Moreover, her analysis shows that, even in the time of so-called scientific ethnography, ethnographers were writing from multiple, constantly shifting positions, and self is never a scientist-observer (198639).To consider further from this point, we could identicalness a difference between classical ethnography and experimental ethnography. For Malinowski, and his students Firth and Evens-Prichard, the writing of self is a strategy serving for building the authority of scientific ethnography however, for Rabinow and his contemporary anthropologists, the consciously s elf-realization in ethnographic writing achieverfully opens up a dimension for reflective thinking. The self, thus, is public, and mediates in different cultures. The appearance of the new kind of self writing is very provocative epistemologically, in view of the production and explanation of the knowledge,it penetrates into the relationship between knowledge of self and knowledge of the Other and how knowledge is hermeneutically represented(Rapport, and Overing 2000) methodologically, it seeks for the diversity of ethnographic writing, more specifically, the formulation of the subjectivity, the utilization of rhetoric, or, I would say, the writing style.4. A summary of the three themes one heart and two basic relationshipsThroughout all three themes-ethnographic truth, rhetoric in ethnography, and the writing of self, there is a central point-the construction of ethnographic authority, which cannot be comprehended without reference to the power relations. The power relations de rive from the Foucaultian intertwining of knowledge and power in the academic discipline as well as the fluctuant historical and political affiliation.Here, I will not repeat these issues which I have argued in the first part, rather, I would suggest two relationships existing in the main themes of Writing Culture a) ethnographers and the natives they studied, and b) anthropologists and their readers.Having acquire the tradition of Geertzs interpretive anthropology, Writing Culture highlights the reconstruction of the ethnographer/informant relations (Wang Gao). Indigenous people and their culture are no longer viewed as silent and uniform objects. Ethnographic knowledge, as suggested by Rabinow (1977), is built on a bilateral understanding in certain cultural contexts.At the same time, more importantly, the book pays close attention to the relationship between anthropologists and the readers. Same as the literary outputs, ethnographies shape the relations with the audiences throug h texts (Xu 2001). both the completed texts and reading activities are certainly influenced by the literary processes (Clifford 1986). By scanning how ethnographies communicate with their readers, the reflexive essays4 portray ethnography as a kind of dialogue, and the conversational readership allows, or I could say, encourages the readers to take part in the investigation of ethnographic writing. In addition, the discussions regarding the ethnographers distinguished positions in describing others and expressing Self, permit the readers to mother the different perspectives which the ethnographers have themselves. As Spencer indicated (1989), the correspondence to multiple positions provided by a master hand is a feature of a skillful ethnography. why is it important to take the readership of ethnography into consideration? I think it depends by and large on the unique and versatile character of this readership. Marcus and Cushman (1982) present six categories of readerships of et hnography. The categories differ in purpose, positions, and some of them may merge with another (the first and second one in particular) or others (1) the specialist readership, (2) the general anthropological readership, (3) readerships from the other social sciences (4) the student readership, (5) the action oriented readership,(6)the popular readership(198251-52). Ethnography, firstly, as a genre and a method as well, interposes itself between humanities (relating to kinsperson 1 and 2) and social sciences (relating to category 3) secondly, serves as a puberty rite for professional anthropologists (relating to category 4) thirdly, emerges into social and political decision-making for certain historical and institutional reasons (relating to category 5) and finally, attracts common readers thanks to its literary feature and exotic personality (relating to category 6). It is obvious that the readerships of ethnography are extremely complicated and should be carefully identified. B oth ethnographers and readers must be self-conscious (Rapport 2000). Hence, the ethnographer/reader relation issue raised by Writing Culture writers, from this angle, is stimulating from the 1980s till today.The ethnographer/reader relation, together with the ethnographer/informant relation, is located in the power discourse and knowledge discourse. Once again, the two relationships echo the central bringing close together of Writing Culture-the authority and power. In a word, although the three themes I proposed are not a very complete summary of the book, the one centre and two basic relationships they conveyed, in my opinion, have demonstrated the most acumen and innovation of Writing Culture.Writing Culture the Chinese ExperienceIn the preliminary report of the Writing Culture seminar and papers, Clifford and Marcus state that Writing Culture is lacking the feminist point of view as well as Third World or non-European approach (Clifford and Marcus 1985). For the former omissio n, I allot with Schotle (1987) that, some feminist perspectives is inconspicuously harbored in Pratts essay. However, for sure, there is not a so-called Third World standpoint in Writing Culture, which I think is a significant irony for its analysis of power play in the post-colonial time.In Third World countries, anthropology is in a very different context. Their people and cultures have for a long time been discovered, observed, described, and represented by Westerners. Non-Western anthropologists and their ethnographic works are the symbols of the reconfiguration within the discipline, and most of them naturally locate their fieldwork sites in their own cultures to study their own people. Generally speaking, anthropology5 of the Third World witnesses a fruitful period in the postwar era, which is also the golden age of experimental ethnography, and to some extent, it could be taken as anthropology at home which employs the self-reflexive approach mentioned in Writing Culture. I will then, taking China as an example, look at some ethnographic cases conducted by Chinese anthropologists relating to Writing Culture. I assume it a good perspective to explore the influential power of Writing Culture and its echoes.The first case is Huang Shumins ethnography The Spiral RoadChange In A Chinese resolution Through The Eyes Of A Communist ships company Leader(1998). Depending on his one-year fieldwork (first ten chapters) and a revisit (chapter 1112) in a village in Fujian province, China, Huang provides a picture of the huge political and economic change and development in a Chinese village from the found of Peoples Republic of China to the 1990s as well as the impact on the personal and pubic life of a peasant, who is the a political leader in the community. The political struggles, the hardship of raising a family, and the peasants life wisdom are vividly described through a first-person narrative life history approach. Although his novel-like ethnography is first published in English, Huang is regarded as one of the best Chinese anthropologists for his proficient writing skills and great success in narrating the complexity of historical events in rural China in a lighter tone.The second case is drawn from Li Chunxias PhD talk Television and the Life of Yi People in China (2005)6. As a Yi7 anthropologist, her ethnography explores how television profoundly incorporated into the fabric (2005 5) of local peoples periodical life. In the text, Lis fieldwork notes collected during her three-year fieldwork at her own village give expression to her close emotional ties with native people, and deliver her concerns and worries of the ethnic minorities living deal in contemporary China. Meanwhile, as a scholar, she keenly captures the metaphorical meaning of modernization, development and prosperity by television. Her analysis penetrates into the relations of Yi people/Han people, and pre-modern/modern. The reflexivity somewhat the periphery/c entre relations is a main locomote in contemporary anthropology of China.The third case is Zhuang Kongshaos ethnographic research on a hot topic in Chinese culture and baseball club the family education (Zhuang and Feng 2006). He describes the communications and conflicts between a mother and her heptad years old daughter and the relations among school education, family education and social education. Zhuang is a pioneer in anthropology of China, not only because he introduces a new approach called educational anthropology, most importantly, the final production of Zhuangs fieldwork is an ethnographic film named My Wife, My Daughter. It is actually beyond the scope of Writing Culture, because it is no longer about the writing and the text. I adopt this case here, trying to argue that, Writing Culture highlights the diversity of ethnography, and now, facing the radical form of ethnography, can the arguments in Writing Culture on ethnographic texts fit in ethnographic films? What i s the same and the difference between the grammars of ethnographic writing and seeing? Are pictures more worthy than words in constructing ethnographic authority? Can texts and films be combined in ethnographic enterprise? why and how? The book it self is an open ended text, and constantly simulates new questions for anthropologists in the post Writing Culture era, and that also explains why Writing Culture, after more than twenty years, is still being quoted and debated all over the world. It is true, as Schotle harshly points out (1987), that lots of questions in this book remains unreadable and unsettled. However, I appreciate the original questions it raised and the appeal to dialogue.Rethinking Writing CultureFollowing the reflexive direction, I have three points to make on rethinking the book. Before that, I present a brief schema of the three-stage ethnographic research as follows.There is nothing new, however, my questions are based on it. First, with the text-orientation, h as the importance of writing been stressed over that of doing ethnography in the book? The potential risk in the textualism emphasized in Writing Culture is that fieldwork retires from the leading position, it has provided a context for substituting the empirical research. As we can see from the schema, fieldwork is the centre of ethnographic research in time and space, and it is also the foundation of anthropology. In this experimental moment, we should not only look at the outcome of fieldwork, but also reflect upon the limitations and new characteristics in fieldwork processes in this Writing Culture or post Writing Culture era.Second, leaving back to the very first stage, I would argue, different backgrounds of Western and non-Western ethnographers shape two distinguished patterns of reflexive thinking. First, the Western pattern could be called coming home, after studying the Other, from outside in, anthropologists rescue to the Self, their reflexive thinking is about their o wn tradition in their own cultural institutions. Second, the non-Western pattern could be named as being home, they do not have a return perspective, their reflexive thinking is still deeply in relation to the West. I fear, in reflexive anthropology, which is greatly established by Writing Culture, anthropologists in the Third World would be more marginalized through their resistance in this centre-periphery discourse.My final thought is on rhetoric issue, which is still an incomprehensible question to me. If rhetoric is an integral component of ethnographic writing, as Rosaldo (1986) argued, there are using and abusing of descriptive rhetoric, then, the next obvious question is what is the boundary between use and abuse of rhetoric? It seems to me that, use, is a kind of abuse in itself, if so, how can one control it?EpilogueIn the final part of my essay, I would like to do an experiment. I will write about my reading experience instead of the conclusion of the whole passage.I bef ore read this book in Chinese in my junior year at college. As a literature student, I found the book interesting and inspiring, and it positively influenced me in the choosing of anthropology for graduate study. Later, I reread the book both in English and Chinese, and accessed some related articles written by Writing Culture writers. Surprisingly, I found several articles written in collaboration with Clifford and Marcus. Other than this landmark book, Marcus, together with Cushman, wrote Ethnographies as Texts (1982), which is a call of Writing Culture and he, later, with Fischer, produced the companion volume of Writing Culture-Anthropology as Cultural Critique (1986). Behind these collaborations, I can imagine the interactions of sparkling thoughts as well as understandings and communications. They are spirits of academic research, and also the anthropological endeavor.ReferencesArchetti, E.P. (ed.) (1994) Exploring the written anthropology and the multiplicity of writing. Osl o Scandinavian University Press.Asad, T. (1986) The concept of cultural translation in British social anthropology, in Clifford, J. and Marcus, G.E. (eds.) Writing culture the poetics and politics of ethnography. 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