textual ethnography

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The Ethnographer's Textual Presence: On Three Forms of Anthropological AuthorshipAuthor(s): Haim HazanReviewed work(s):Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Aug., 1995), pp. 395-406Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/656343 .

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The Ethnographer's Textual Presence:On Three Forms of AnthropologicalAuthorshipHaim Hazan

Department of Sociology and AnthropologyTel-AvivUniversity

Ethnographic CuesLet the informantbe the vicarious ethnographer.The threefollowing anec-dotal fieldwork accounts may attest to the rationaleunderpinning his article.1The first case concerns elderly women attendingan adult education course for

the illiterate,held as partof an Israeli urban-renewalproject.The women, whoparticipatedin these classes principally in order to improve communicationwith their grandchildren,took a great interest in one children's story told tothem. It related the intricateescapade of an egg who wished to become some-thing else and,having attemptedto disguise itself as various round and ellipticobjects,returnedeventually to its original state and even hatched. The students,most of whom were of Moroccanorigin, construed this cyclical transformationas analogousto their own life cycle: thus,despitetheexperienceof immigration,culturalassimilation,andsocial change, theirprimordialethnic identity reignedsupremeover any alternativeguise of personhood. By referringto a given text,the women used the story as a templatefor the construction of their own text ofidentity, thereby implying that an identification between authorship the abilityto formulateone's life narrative)andauthority thelicense to do so) must be ac-complished.The second case concerns a rabbi, a resident of an Israeli old-age home,who enacted his life story in an uncompromising adaptivemanner.Systemati-cally andmeticulously, he eliminatedfromhis narrative hose life events and at-tributes that could have associated him with the much disdained group of thesynagoguecongregants. Irrespectiveof his pastecclesiastical career,he empha-sized only those elements in his past that could contributeto bolsteringhis po-sition in the old-age home-drawing on the Zionist-Socialist ideology of the in-stitution's administration.Hence, contextual constraints of survival overrode

CulturalAnthropology 10(3):395-406. Copyright? 1995, AmericanAnthropologicalAssociation.

395

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396 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

other sources of identity.The authorshipof the rabbiwho rewrote his biographywas no longer furnishedby the authorityof masteringa coherentreality. Infact,the former was divorced from the latter.The third case is derived from the verbal discourses articulatedwithin agroupof old-age pensioners who constituted a study class at the University oftheThirdAge in Cambridge,England.This voluntaryself-help organizationen-abled its members to form various settings for mutual-aidlearningand to con-ductfree-floating, unstructureddiscussions. Thegeneraloutlookpropounded nthose meetings was thatalthough one should view the world "with a third-ageeye," that "eye" sees the underlying fundamentals upon which all humanthoughtand action are edified. This atemporaluniversalcode is beyond culture,language, society, and subjectivity and thus embraces all humans and is re-vealed in theirbasic presocialized natureof humanness.Here, both authorshipandauthorityaredismissed. The rules governing behavior and ideas are irrele-vant to either context or text.Each of these researchexamples is based on ethnographieswhose inform-ants regardedthemselves as authentic,genuine, and faithful representativesof"the natives' point of view" concerningthe "true" abricof their existence. Theanthropologistwho presumesto fathomthe essence of his researchsubject's ex-perience through the ambivalent practice of participant-observation s alsoforced to grapplewith the dilemmaof authorshipandauthority.One mustgrap-ple, thatis, with his or her constructionof the anthropologicalnarrative,on theone hand,and thecredibility andvalidity of thepresenteddata as a reflection ofthe studied arena,on the other. The three cases suggest three anthropologicalmodes whose distinctive propertyis the relationshipbetween author-that is,the anthropologist-and the sourceof theauthority hatendows the monographwith a sense of acknowledged ethnographicauthenticity.Thethree models drawon differentsystems of anthropologicalaccountability,whose explorationcon-stitutes the main objective of the following.

The ProblemThe anthropologist's point of view as an issue in its own right within an-thropologicaldiscourse has gained increasedrecognition with the discovery ofthe autobiographicalmark at its core.2Thus, self-searching inquiriesalongsidemethodological considerations constitute the two main pathways into the per-sonal origins of ethnography.However, if personalinvolvement is to be ascer-tained and understood neither as an idiosyncraticeffect nor as a researchim-

perative, focusing on the anthropologistas an individual must be suspended.That is, the fieldworker's propensities and preferences, the sociocultural sys-tems of accountability to which the fieldworkeris subjected,and the natureofthe researcharenaall have to be kept atbayas relevant factors shapingthe con-toursof the autobiographicalpresence in the composition of the ethnographictext. In short, our perspective on the issue at hand endeavors to unravel themetalanguageof incorporatingpersonalinterjections nto the endproductof theanthropological process.



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Evidently, one would invoke theoretical commitments to explain away themetalinguistic propertiesunderlying an academic text. However, be they im-plicit or explicit, such considerations should be regardedmerely as conceptualstatementsframedby a modality concerning the interplay among ideas, field,andtext as orchestratedby the anthropologist.Indeed, it is this organizationoflinkages between these threeconstituentsthat sets the scene for ourapproach othe problem of understanding he presence or the absence of autobiographicalattributes n anthropologicalmonographs.3

The PropositionSince the anthropologicalmonograph s both the targetand the database orour discussion, detection of autobiographicalsuggestions must not exceed theconfines of the texts in question. That is, the indications for the mode of inter-play amongideas, field, and the writtenpresentationshould be soughtand ascer-tainedby meansof textualanalysis alone. Thus, the self-presentationof a mono-graphis regardedas an exclusive testimony to the particularmode of interplayamong ideas, field, andtext embedded in it.Thereare threeways of arranging heorderof priorities amongideas, field,and text. The monographcould present itself as an ideas-orientedtext, a field-

orientedtext, ora text-oriented ext.Thefirst modegives prominenceto an apri-ori conceptualmodel whichin turndetermines andshapestheethnographic on-cerns and the presentation of the field. By way of deduction, the text isconstructed to corroboratea theoretical truism whose validity rests within itsown innerconviction. This mode suggests a temporal conception of a prefield-work paradigm.Since such a paradigmdisregardsparticularcontext and is culturallynon-relativistic, it invariablyconsists of arguments purportingto establish rules ofinterconnectedness between elements. Thus, form governs content, and struc-tureoverridesprocess. It is thedictateof thesyntaxof explanationthat underliesthis type of text, in which substance andparticularsaresubservient o a set of ex-tra-ethnographic ules thatserve as a general code to decipherfield accounts.4Such an intellectual stance towardanthropologicalmaterialrendersthe anthro-pologist uninvolved, almost irrelevant. His or her understandingof the field is,thus, in no way anemergentpropertyof participant-observation.Rather, t is anapplicationof nonspecific explanatoryprinciplesto agiven ethnographicexam-ple. The monographas a text, therefore,is devoid not only of anypersonalcom-mentarybut also of suggestions affecting the field orconstructing t. The anthro-pologist, in this case, appearsas a disinterested,neutralpresenterandinterpreterof rules to which bothresearcherand researchees are equally subjected.The second mode is intent on introducing into the text an ethnographicpresencethatcaptures he natureof the realityunderstudyand doesjustice to itsincumbents.Notwithstandinganthropologists' acute awarenessof the incoher-ent Rashomon effect prevalentin any field, the desire to provide a full-fledgedaccount of a social unit or phenomenondrives the researcher o depict a highlydetailedpictureof the interwovenfactors constitutingthat context. It is, indeed,



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the concern with context rather han text or syntax thatshapes the presentationof the field and hence defines the unassuming partof the anthropologist n cul-tivating it. Here the anthropologist's predicament,the dual position of partici-pant-cum-observer, s probablythe most pressingof the threemodes. He or sheis compelledconstantlyto strikea fine balancebetween the imperativeof lettingthe field talk for itself, the editorial need to organizedatain a meaningfulman-ner,and the need to set a hidden or overt explanatoryagendato framethe pres-entation.Theauthor, herefore,becomes a third-personnarratorwhose mainun-dertaking s to preservethe illusion of objectivity andethnographiccredibility.However, what might put that illusion in jeopardyis the need for reflexiv-ity.5 Once an anthropologistenters a contemplative state regardinghis or herrole in the field, that role can take the form of personalintrospection,social ad-vocacy, or both. A growing awareness of the anthropologist's uniquecontribu-tion to the presentationof the field could lead to a declaredposition of a writerwhose literaryflair andpersonaltouch generatethe monographictext. Text, in-deed, is the main concern of that thirdmode; it is its own justification and itsonly end. Thus, it would be inconceivable not to expect more thanjust a mereautobiographicalmark. Since the anthropologist's own experiences, delibera-tions, and existentialproblems unrelentinglyimpinge uponthepresentation, hetext is an undeniablepiece of autobiography.Evidently these three modes are not mutuallyexclusive, nor arethey rigidparadigmsfor constructing anthropological texts. Rather,they constitute focifor a rangeof alternatives that could be arrangedon a continuum with one endrepresentingan absence of a biographical markin an anthropologicalmono-graphand the othersignifying the omnipresenceof such marks.Thesyntactical,the contextual, and the textual modes, respectively, possess some self-evidentanddistinguishablepropertiesthat could be construedas directoffshoots of thecorrelationbetween the conception of the field and the autobiographicalpres-ence.If the intricate and somewhat puzzling relationshipbetween emic nomen-clature and etic concepts is to guide our discussion, then the following distinc-tions could be propounded.In the first mode, emic and etic are uncompromis-ingly separated, with the latter being furnished by the former, but not thereverse. The result is a predominanceof the anthropologist's concepts whoseaimof reachingfor anunderstandingof humanuniversals endows them with animpersonal, culturally neutralquality. Consequently, informantswho conveyemic ideologies to the anthropologist hardlyfeature in the text, which is com-posed to advance an argumentratherthan to provide substantive information.The second mode suggests that emic and etic inform each other and, in-deed, conceptsfrom the realmof the formerarerestyledandadapted o serve thelatter.Thus cultural anguageis transformed ntoanthropological ocution.Thisnexus makes for an open, bilateral channel of communication between re-searcherand researchees with a mutual recognition of a distance between par-ticipantand observer.The organizationof the text follows the principleof pur-



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suing the ethnographicpresentand is faithful to the parametersof the field asprocessed throughthe anthropologist's perspective.The thirdmode, by definition, abandonsany claim for experience-distantconcepts6and lends its depictionsof the field to the subjective interpretation fthe anthropologist.The choice of key concepts in this case is conditionedby thefusion of emic andetic. Identificationbetween explanationand field categories,therefore, is complete. The text, being the authentic reflection of its author'smentalhorizons, becomes an object for a free personal expression.

Why Monographs on Aging?To test the proposition, I have selected three monographson the elderly.All of them deal withEnglish-speakingJews in age-homogenousenvironments.This last factoris comfortablyexplicable by themethodologicaldemandtokeepconstant as many ethnographicattributesas possible so that the comparisons

among the three can remainfocused on the issues at stake.The first point, thechoice of aging as an appropriatephenomenonfor the sake of our discussion,calls for furtherelaboration.The anthropologyof aging has come of age only in recentyears.The holis-tic natureof anthropologicalresearchbanished theelderly to a place of marginalimportance.Being removed fromthecenterof power, economy, andfamily, theelderly in simple societies were ethnographically submerged within the do-mainsof age-grades,ritual,andkinship genealogies.7This scant attention o theelderly as a sociocultural researchobject in its own right left the academicturfof the phenomenonbarrenwith no serious attemptto develop suitableexplana-toryframes.The discovery of theold in anthropologyhas followed the growinganthropological nterestinunderprivilegedminorities andsocial problems.Thistrend has advancedthe elderly towardthe limelight atleast in Americananthro-pology. This nascent developmenthas created a twofold consequence: a prolif-eration of ethnographicmaterial and anthropologicalliteratureon the elderly,alongside a significantly noticeable lacuna of concepts, analytic tools, method-ologies, and theoreticalperspectives.The absence of anthropologicalconventions makes any monographon theelderly into an unconventional text. Having a foundation that is neither pro-grammablenor predetermined,the reportedethnographyon the elderly tran-spires as a noncommittal anthropologicalproduction. This condition enablesone to detect the autobiographicalmarkwithout the opaque screeningof taken-for-grantedanthropologicalmodalities.The following will briefly invoke threemonographsto testify to the threecorresponding categories previously described. This is by no means a repre-sentative sample of relevantliterature,nor is it a randomselection. Rather, t isan attempt o illustratewith appropriate xamples thepropositionunderconsid-eration.In thatrespect, one shouldtreattheensuing discussion as aheuristicde-vice in formulating a working definition of the linkage between the autobio-graphicalmarkand the respective type of textualpresentation.



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Monograph as TextThe first monographis BarbaraMyerhoff's (1978) seminal study of thecultural arenaof elderly members at a Jewish day center in Venice, California.This anthropologicalaccountis imbued from its very beginningwithexplicit as-sertions of the author'scommitted involvement in the center's scene and to thebroader existential scope of her research subjects. The acknowledgment thatprefacesthis text reveals some of its self-justification.As Myerhoffstates,"Iamgratefulabove all to the Centerpeople who gave themselves to me so fully andby doing thatgave me partsof myself andmy heritage"(1978:VI). This confes-sional declaration s amply qualified and amplified throughout he text:I sat on thebenchesoutsidethe Centerandthoughtabouthow strange t was tobe back ntheneighborhood here ixteenyearsbefore had ived.... LikemanysecondgenerationAmericans wasn't surewhatbeingaJew meant.WhenI wasa childmy familyhadavoidedthe wordsJew and Yid. Wewere confusedandembarrassedboutourbackground.Myerhoff1978:11]

As a consequenceof this quest for identity Myerhoffdecides to "studyher ownkind" andpondersover the problem ofhow to labelwhatI wasdoing-was it anthropologyr a personal uest? neverfully resolved hequestion. usedmanyconventionalmethodsand askedmanytypicalquestions,butwhenIhadfinished foundmydescription idnot resemblemostanthropological ritings.Still theresultsof thestudywouldcertainlyhavebeen differenthadI not been ananthropologist y training.1978:12]The dilemma of having to choose between the autobiographicaldrive andthe anthropologicalcommitmentgoverns the whole structureand content of theensuing text. Thus, the anthropologist constructs her databaseby asking her

subjectstoparticipate n storytellinggroupsthat she conducts. Her own involve-ment in the life of the center becomes so substantial hattheelderlymembersareeventually exposed to the limelight of the American media andenjoy somethingof a celebrityhalo.Empathicidentification is so intense thatthe authororganizesher text ac-cording to her subjects' folk classifications. Hence, the titles for the chaptersfollow majoremic themes stemming from the experience of the people understudy. For example: "We don't wrap herringin a printedpage";"For an edu-cated man, he could learn a few things"; "We fight to keep warm";"Jewishcomes up in you from the roots." This last title is most indicativeof the spiritofthe text-an attempt o use anthropologyas a viable, credible tool to reconstructthe sharedconceptions of common heritagethat unite the authorwith her field.The lack of discrepancybetween emic andetic is embeddedin the concep-tual frameworkchosen by Myerhoffto analyzetheplightof beingold. Conceptsof honor, worth,visibility, andaging well areemployed to discuss the situationof the people in question and directly reflect theirconceptions andworldviewsby using their own terminology.



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Involvement and identification reach the limits of the anthropological li-cense to the extent that Shmuel, Myerhoff's main informant,offers more de-tached,moreobjective personalobservations of the centermembers than the an-thropologist.However, his self-assessment as an informantmakeshimreluctantto act in thatcapacity:"So you want me to be your native. No, that's flatteringbut not good," he said. "I am not typical. Get some of the others at the Center;I am notlike them. I don't join clubs, I amnot aZionist, I do not believe in God.Find someone else" (Myerhoff 1978:8).8

Monograph as ContextWhile Myerhoff closes her monographwith a highly personal epilogue,Doris Francis (1984) concludes her book with policy-making recommenda-tions. Francis's book's title alone alludes to its referentialscope, paraphrasinga well-known Beatles song: Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed MeWhenI Am 84? In contrast to Myerhoff's biblical metaphor, "Number OurDays," Francis sets the analytic scene for her presentationby framing the se-mantic zone of herwork,within which needs, dependency, support,andinterac-tion are the chief coordinates.Indeed, the book purportsto comparethe social supportnetworks of Jewsresiding in Cleveland, Ohio, to those of Jewish inhabitantsof shelteredhousingin Leeds, England.The thesis advancedin this workmaintains that the EnglishJews developed a strongersense of communityandenjoyed betterintergenera-tional links thantheirAmericancontemporaries.The anthropologistemployedintegratedresearchmethods, combiningparticipant-observationwith samplingtechniques andstructured nterviews. The underpinningsof the inquiryseek toexplore factorsassociated with interactionalpatterns,residentialcontinuity andkinship ties. The main concepts guiding the presentationare of a middle-range

type, verging on both emic and etic orientations-hence, the termsfriendshipnetworks,community,role adjustment,andurban context. It is, indeed,the over-all context-environmental, interactional,and intergenerational-that consti-tutes the researchdesign and the ethnographicoutput producedin this mono-graph.The position of the authorvis-a-vis the field is clearly stated in terms ofmethodology rather han in terms of personalinvolvement. Herpresence in bothlocalities is thus described as a process dominated and regulated by the con-straints and the requirementsof the study.Consistently using the term informants in reference to her research sub-jects, the anthropologisteliminates any hint of personal involvement in theirlives. Initially having faced noncooperationandbeing surroundedby an air ofsuspicion, she briefly reportsher introductionto the field:On the days thatSocial Securitychecks were delivered and the elderly werecertain o behome,I accompaniedhemailmen n theirroutesandwasintroducedas a frienddoing a researchprojectabout the neighbourhood nd its older



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402 CULTURALNTHROPOLOGYresidents.For the next severalmonths,I got to know people informallyandconducted surveyandsurvey nterviews. Francis1984:10]

As the community becomes more accessible, the anthropologistcontinues topenetrate he social world of herinformants o the extent of accompanying hem"tomany activities"and also joining themfor afternooncoffee at thelocal deli."Ioften met informantswhile shoppingor bankingin the neighbourhoodwhereI also lived," she writes."Theyin turn ntroducedme to friends,neighboursandfamily members"(Francis 1984:10).This impersonal account presents participant-observationas a mere re-searchtool that enables the anthropologistto gain a crediblepictureof the field.Having dischargedthatmethodological exposition, the authorgoes on to com-pose her text in a most dispassionatemanneras a detailed, cogently systematicdepiction of her two fields in accordance with the main conceptualframeworksof adjustmentand networks.The seemingly vastpotentialof herparticipation nthe lives of the people understudy does not materialize in any textual form.

Monograph as SyntaxDevoid of anydirectautobiographical ouch is Hazan's (1980) monograph

on the social life of elderly members of a Jewish day center in London.Osten-sibly context-boundresearch,the monograph s equippedwith thepanoplyof aconventional field account, including ecological details, background nforma-tion, and delineation of social boundariesand interactionalpatterns.However,a closer look at the textualpresentationwould reveal a differentanalytic organi-zation. The articulationof the argument s concernedwith a construct-time-which under the circumstancesof thatparticular ield falls entirely into an eticcategory. Hence, the attemptto identify the temporaluniverse of the people atthe center is neither a reflexive exercise nor a deciphermentof folk taxonomy.Rather,by employing propertiesof the context, the anthropologistelicits fromthe field materialparametersand criteriaenabling him to address a generalhu-manistic issue.9The text, therefore,lacks full-fledged descriptions of the maincharacters,and it does not providesystematic accounts of extended case studies. Rife withdescriptive illustrations,the text fragmentsand reconstitutes the ethnographicpresentto form aconceptualmodel of approachinga humanuniversal.Inthatre-spect, the conclusions reached in that work are amenable to extrapolationtootherrealities, not necessarily of a similarethnographicsubstance.The position of the author s dualistic, for his presence and voice are bothentirely pertinentand highly impertinentto the monographictext. On the onehand,thenonrelativisticnatureof the argumentprecludespersonalcommentaryon what seems to be a nonspecific universal;on the otherhand,it is this veryas-sumptionthatencompasses the anthropologistand his researchsubjectswithinone indivisible mental universe. Hazan's solution to this dual commitment s abrief rendition of the intellectualhistory leading towardthedevelopmentof theconcept of time in relationto the field. Here the author lends the text the well-



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defined aspect of his cognitive self, carefully excluding all other dimensionssuch as the emotional, the social, and the cultural.Conclusion

The three texts offer differentapproaches opositioning thefield in the tex-tual presentationof ethnography.Each perspective, by its own built-in ration-ale, commitsthe anthropologistto his or herself-exposure. Itranges,as we haveseen, from a powerful injection of autobiographicalcontemplationsandjustifi-cations, througha methodologically conditioned personal commentary, to animpersonal approach.It is interesting to note that,althoughthe threeexamplescited are on more or less orthodox fieldwork, the reflections in the respectivemonographsvaried from personal reflexivity to neutrality.The question of the reasoningbehind these choices is intriguingand couldadd to ourknowledge of the interconnectionbetween autobiographyandethno-graphic narration.As a preliminaryproposition it could be argued that in thecase of the study of aging and the aged, the basic attitude towardthe subject athand has animpacton the decision as to which temporalmode-postfield, field,or prefield-the anthropologist should adopt in the construction of the text. Itwould seem that to view aging as a unique phenomenon,whose understandingrequiresthe enlisting of personal resources and insights, would yield the firstorientation.Consideringold age as apracticalmatterof adjustmentand circum-stances wouldproducethe second orientation,whereassearchingfora universalparadigm or a majorexistential issue, which could be served by the case of ag-ing, results in the thirdorientation.To examine this hypothesis one would haveto conduct a cross-referential study of the writings of the anthropologistsdis-cussed on othersubjects.This is beyond the scope, the capacity, and indeed therationaleof this article.The autobiographicalmark s herewithconsideredneitherananecdotal an-thropological curiosity northe core issue of ethnographicresearch.Rather, t isemployed as a viable yardstick for the interdisciplinaryparadigmaticdistinc-tions. These divisions, which serve no other purposethanthe epistemologicalrecognitionof anthropologicalpatternsof knowledge, are structurallydevisedand in that sense are divergent from metaphoricallyoriented approaches,10 swell as from field-ethnographerdialectical postulates.1 Each stance alludes toa differentframeof anthropologicalunderstandingandthus calls foraninterpre-tative code of relevant rules on its own terms.

Notes1. The three cases are based on three anthropologicalfield studies. The first wascarried out in an Israeli renewal project neighborhood during 1981-83 (see Hazan1990). The second is based on research in an Israeliold-age home (see Hazan 1980) andthe thirdis based on datacollected in Cambridgeduring 1984-85.2. The analogy recently drawn between anthropological accounts and literarywriting has given rise to the trend of "new ethnography"whose advocates (see, forexample, Clifford 1983, 1986; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Fiske and Shweder 1986)



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concentrateon the literaryqualitiesof the text, therebyfalling under what Nugent calls"textualism" (Nugent 1988; see also Fernandez 1985; Marcus and Cushman 1983;Shweder 1986).3. This approachis largely attuned to the epistemological debate concerning theorganization of tacit knowledge (see, for example, Harre 1977 and Salamone 1979).Various attemptshave been made to reconsider the relations between specific anthro-pologists and their works.Kirschner 1987) andCaplan(1988) use this autobiographicalapproach to reflect on the influence of identities, especially engendered ones, onethnographic knowledge. Geertz (1988) uses it to describe, in a more impressionistmanner,the connection between "works"and "lives," while Strathern 1987) suggeststhat anthropologicalnarrativesare basically autobiographicaland thus always histori-cally situated.4. Such attemptsto search for a deductive method of inference are inherentin avariety of theoretical approaches from evolutionism, through extreme versions offunctionalism, to structuralism.The Batesonian theory of schismogenesis and its de-rivatives could also be consideredto fall underthatcategory.Foranarticulatediscussionof intellectual manifestations of anthropologicalschools of thought, see Shweder 1984.5. Of the abundantworks on reflexivity, Babcock's (1980) analysis of the term isprobably the most succinct and conceptually lucid. For more recent, postmoderndiscussions on reflexivity as anethnographiccondition andpredicament,see Tyler 1987and Clifford 1988.6. For a discussion of the dialectics between experience-near concepts andexpe-rience-distantconcepts in anthropologicaldiscourse, see Geertz 1979.7. For an overview, see Simic 1979. On the general notion of the rhetoric ofanthropologicalholism, see Thornton1988.8. It is importantto note that it is not the subject matter(i.e., life histories) thatengenders autobiographicalcommentary.Kaufman's (1986) work, for example, dealswith similar data, but in a conceptually disciplined fashion and with considerablepersonaldistance.9. Two more examples of this explanatory model are Handelman's (1977) workon encounters and play among the aged and Gubrium's (1986) analysis of old-age-relatedprofessional categories of senility.10. See for example Kline-Taylor's (1985) analysis of the element of "under-standing"in anthropologicalmodels.11. This alludes to a long-standingdebateconcerningtheparadoxesanddilemmasinvolved in the relationshipbetween field andethnographer.See, for example, Murphy1971; Jarvie 1975; and Fabian 1983. For a discussion of the problematic relationsbetween theethnographerand his fieldnotes, see Jackson 1990 andSanjek 1990, as wellas the special issue of the Journal of ContemporaryEthnography (Van Maanenet al.1990) dedicated to ethnographicresearchwriting.

References CitedBabcock,Barbara1980 Reflexivity: Definition and Discrimination. Semiotica 30(1-2): 1-14.Caplan,Patricia1988 Engendering Knowledge: The Politics of Ethnography.Anthropology Today4(6):14-17.



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Clifford,James1983 On EthnographicAuthority. Representations l(spring):118-146.1986 On EthnographicAllegory. In Writing Culture:The Poetics and Politics of

Ethnography. James Clifford and George Marcus, eds. Pp. 98-121. Berkeley:University of California Press.1988 The Predicament of Culture.Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press.Clifford,James,andGeorgeMarcus,eds.1986 WritingCulture:The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography.Berkeley: Univer-

sity of California Press.Fabian,Johannes1983 Time andthe Other:How Anthropology Makes ItsObject.New York:Colum-

bia University Press.Fernandez,James1985 Exploded Worlds: Text as a Metaphor for Ethnography(and Vice Versa).Dialectical Anthropology 10(1-2): 15-26.Fiske, Donald,and RichardShweder,eds.1986 Metatheoryin Social Sciences: Pluralisms and Subjectivities. Chicago: Uni-versity of Chicago Press.Francis,Doris1984 Will You Still Need Jle, Will You Still Feed Me WhenI Am 84? Bloomington:IndianaUniversity Press.Geertz,Clifford1979 From the Native's Point of View: On the Natureof Anthropological Under-standing.In InterpretiveSocial Science: A Reader. Paul Rabinow and William M.Sullivan, eds. Pp. 225-241. Berkeley: University of California Press.1988 Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford: Stanford Univer-sity Press.Gubrium,JaberF.1986 Oldtimers and Alzheimers: The Descriptive Organizationof Senility. Green-wich, CT: JAI Press.Handelman,Don1977 Workand Play Among the Aged. Amsterdam:Van-Gorcum.Harre,Rom1977 The Structureof Tacit Knowledge. Journalof the BritishSociety of Phenome-nology 8(2):172-177.Hazan,Haim1980 The Limbo People: A Study of the Constitution of the Time Universe amongthe Aged. London:Routledge & Kegan Paul.1990 A ParadoxicalCommunity.Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Jackson,Jean1990 Deja Entendu: The LiminalQualities of AnthropologicalFieldnotes. Journalof ContemporaryEthnography19(1):8-43.Jarvie,Ian C.1975 Epistle to the Anthropologists. American Anthropologist77(2):253-266.Kaufman,Sharon1986 The Ageless Self: Sources of Meaning in Later Life. Madison: University ofWisconsin Press.



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