Transcript Presentation7[1].

1. on authority (Who has the
power to construct and portray a
culture and how?)
2. on textuality (how your
writing strategies, style, choice of
voice (I, them, he, she) influences
readers perception of the
culture?)
Realist ethnographies ( a realist
account of a culture)
Realist texts allow the
ethnographer to remain in an
unchallenged control of his (her)
narrative.
Modernist ethnographies:
Came as a reaction to realist
ethnographies and they
challenge them on the dialogics
of ethnographer and subject
interactions.
Characteristics of Realist
Ethnographies
a. Most popular style
b. Single author
c. Exclusion of personal experience
d. authenticity
Conventions of a Realist
Ethnography
•
•
•
•
Experiential Authority
Ethnographic Form (style)
Native Point of View (arranging)
Interpretive Omnipotence (power to
describe)
Experiential Authority
• Absence of the author
• Academic credentials
• Audience expectations
“I concentrated upon girls of
the community. I spent the
greater part of my time with
them” (16)
2. The Ethnographic Form (style)
•
•
•
•
•
Focus on the mundane
Details
Unchallengeable
Complete
Nothing missing
“Poor relatives whisper their
requests to rich relatives, men
make plans to set a fish trap
together, a woman begs a bit of
yellow dye from a kinswoman,
and through the village sounds
the rhythmic tattoo which calls
the young men together” (19)
3. The natives Point of view
• Presentation of carefully edited quotations
• Sometimes left out (Mead)
• Monovocal(one voice)
“Girls stop to giggle over some
young ne’er-do-well who escaped
during the nigh from an angry
father’s pursuit and to venture a
shrewd guess that the daughter
knew more about his presence
than she told” (18).
4. Interpretive Omnipotence
• Final word
• Interpretation and presentation
• Theoretical question
“It is I who will describe them or create
them” (Stoking, 1983: 101)
“What method then is open to us
who wish to conduct a human
experiment but who lack the power
either to construct the experimental
conditions or to find control
examples of those conditions here
throughout our own civilization? (14)
Defamiliarization by crosscultural juxtaposition
• Using one cultures’ examples to critique
another
• Anthropology as a cultural critique
Trends against ethnographic
realism
• The subject matter of anthropology (usually the
exotic Other) has changed or is changing.
• The medium of anthropology (usually the
monograph, ethnographic realism) is no longer
predominant.
• The method of anthropology (usually participant
observation) is no longer enough.
• The intention of anthropology (has been usually to
present an objective portrayal of an alien culture
by the anthropologist is no longer valid.)