How have Anthropologists Grappled with the Challenges of Writing?
Anthropologists spend a great amount of their lives in the “field” as it is one of the most important parts of their studies and anthropology. Anthropology is connected with the interactions of anthropologists with the people in the field in order to look closely at the complex social lives of the people they are studying. Thus, we can say that a very crucial role is played by anthropologists for constructing their narratives. In this essay, we will analyze how have anthropologists grappled with challenges of writing and what techniques, positions, strategies, and positionality have they adopted to describe and bring the worlds of their interlocutors that doesn’t reduce them into simplified beings and as backgrounds.
Many notable anthropologists have utilized different strategies in order to study their subjects. We can see that Boas and Horace Miner, talked about cultural relativism- that we must understand the subjects from their lens instead of understanding them from our cultural perspective. (Boas and Miner) Thus, anthropologists need to be very open in regards to their subjects and never have a prejudice against them or consider their cultural values to be inferior as compared to theirs because only by embedding themselves into the lives of their subjects they will be able to understand them better. Cultural relativism is very crucial for the methodological consideration of the anthropologists because they must for a short period of time forget their own morals, values, ethical believes in the field. However, this is at times very challenging for the anthropologists because at times they go and do research in the cultures which are starkly different from their own. However, it is also very difficult for the anthropologist to have complete objectivity in the field and they find it very difficult to maintain it at all times.
The reading by Julie Livingston called “Neoplastic Africa” is about the diseases in Africa which can be considered to be acceptable and the diseases which cannot be considered to be acceptable in Africa. The authors talk about how the outbreak of cancer cannot be widely accepted by the western communities because they think that cancer is the “diseases of the developed” (Neoplastic Africa). Moreover, the President of the World Bank Lawrence Summers said, “Africans didn’t live long enough to care about cancer” (Neoplastic Africa).Thus, we can see that at times like the “theory of the south” by Comaroffs, rationality is linked with the west and irrationality is associated with Africa. Even for diseases the complex diseases can only be for the west and the wild diseases like sexually transmitted diseases can be for the Africa because Africans are considered to be like wild animals for the westerners. Thus, we can see that it is important to have no prejudice against a certain race because otherwise, we would not enable us to overcome our challenges. Moreover, it is important for the ethnographers to study their subjects deeply and see them as a story so that they can be correctly understood by outsiders and in this case not just as irrational beings but seen as rational. Moreover, a good ethnography needs to overcome the challenges of the bias so that it can convey the truth to the people and make Westerners realize that developed diseases can also be found in the people who are considered as irrational by them.
Anthropologists have used different techniques in order to conduct research such as participant observation, observation, field notes, gathering life histories, key informants and by interviews and conversations etc. The most common technique used by the anthropologists is observations and participant observations. Ethnographers observe every nook and corner of their field and the lives of their subjects and they basically keep their focus on what their subjects are doing in their daily lives, how they interact and what are the things which affect them. It is very crucial for the anthropologists to jot down everything they see as it is in their field notes. Secondly, participant observation is linked with the conversation and interactions the anthropologists have with their informants. Participant observation is very important because it helps the anthropologists to understand their subjects from the emic perspective and not just the etic perspective. “Emic and etic refer to two kinds of field research done, and viewpoints obtained: emic, from within the social group (from the perspective of the subject) and etic, from outside (from the perspective of the observer)” (Wikipedia). Thus, we can assert that the quality of a good observer would be that he studies his subject from both emic and etic perspective.
Malinowski also talks about the importance of the participant observation as he said that it helps “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world.” (Malinowski, pg 6).Therefore, in order to lead participant observation it is very crucial for the anthropologists to live and spend a great amount of time with their subjects so that they will be able to develop rapport with their informants as it would help them to understand them better. Rapport is basically building a relation of trust and respect with your informants so that they will be at ease with the ethnographer.
Abu-Lughod, Lila. 2005. “Writing Against Culture.” is also a very important text when analyzing the works of the anthropologists and the challenges they face which doing an ethnography. The major reason why the text “Writing Against Culture) was written was so that it would help the readers “to reconsider the values on the concept of culture” (Lila, pg446). It is very crucial to reconsider the values because the lead to a divide between “others” and “selves”. Thus, it is very significant to write against the mainstream culture. Moreover, she also leads to a very important area and says “The most important of culture’s advantages, however, is that it removes difference from the realm of the natural and innate. Whether conceived as a set of behaviors, customs, traditions, rules, plans, recipes, instructions, or programs, culture is learned and can change” (pg,144). Thus, we can see that she is trying to assert that the notion of the “self” is basically culturally developed. Thus, it is very important to consider and understand Lila’s ideas when conducting ethnography in order to tackle the challenges.
We can also look closely at the reading by Radhika, “Animal Intimacies” which showed the hilly area in India and Radhika’s subject was basically the inmates in that hilly area. Those inmates were not just the humans but the Pahari goats there as well. She showed to the reader that the animals over there were not just considered to be the animals there, but they were much more than that for instance, just like the humans because people over there considered how they would think and feel from their actions. Thus, Radhika is showing that the animals are “not as a symbolic foil … but as subjects whose agency, intention, and capacity for emotion were crucial in shaping the relationships they made with humans” (Radhika, pg6). However, these sort of the fields are at times very challenging for the anthropologists when conducting ethnography, especially when they have never had exposure to such cultures before but then in order to fully understand their exotic ethnographic subjects the ethnographers must follow the advice that “If you want to learn about Pahari animals, you will have to do the same [i.e., ethnography] with them” (Radhika, pg 19).
In addition, according to Clifford Geertz “thick descriptions” are very important because they help to conduct an in-depth research about how people spend their everyday lives in their culture. Moreover, in “Interpretation to Culture” Clifford Geertz explains how the writing and research can be done by the anthropologists through thick descriptions because they help to understand not only the cultural or behavioral context of the subject but also the context in which those behaviors occur and the logic behind certain behaviors. Thus, helping the reader understand the real motive behind certain actions of certain people from a culture. Thus, it is very integral because understanding the motivations, perspectives and attitudes behind certain actions is the heart of ethnography.
It can be concluded that there are different techniques and positionalities such as objectivity, thick descriptions, rapport, cultural relativism, emic and etic perspective, interrelatedness, observation and participant observation used by anthropologists in order to tackle the issues of writings faced by them. Thus, these innovative techniques help the ethnographer in bringing to the world their interlocutors that doesn’t reduce them into simplified beings and as backgrounds.
Works Cited
Comaroff, Jean & Comaroff, John. (2012). Theory From the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa. Anthropological Forum. 22. 113–131. 10.1080/00664677.2012.694169.
“Emic And Etic”. En.Wikipedia.Org, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic.
Geertz, Clifford.. The interpretation of cultures: selected essays. New York : Basic Books, c1973. http://hdl.handle.net.proxy.library.nyu.edu/2027/heb.01005.0001.001.
Livingston, Julie. Improvising Medicine : An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic, Duke University Press, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1173251.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. Argonauts of the Western Pacific, Routledge, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1675940.
Miner, Horace. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist, vol. 58, no. 3, 1956, pp. 503–507. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/665280.
Moore, Henrietta L., and Todd Sanders. Anthropology in Theory : Issues in Epistemology, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/lib/nyulibrary-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1575629.
MURPHY, D. (2019), Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas. Govindrajan, Radhika. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. 256 pp.. American Ethnologist, 46: 119–120. doi:10.1111/amet.12748
