theoretical sociology lecture 10

8/13/2019 Theoretical Sociology Lecture 10

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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?

theoretical sociology lecture 10

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