Being There
Some Theoretical Aspects of Writing History at a Distance
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 11610222 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Donna Merwick (autor de correspondencia) |
| Año | 1986 |
| Volumen | 14 |
| Número | 4 |
| Páginas | 487-487 |
| Fecha de publicación | 1986-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sí |
| Open Access | No |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | Reviews in American History (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 0048-7511 • E-ISSN: 1080-6628 |
| Editorial | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2702196 |
| OpenAlex | W2318504607 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Citas recibidas | 1 |
| Referencias citadas | 8 |
Over past several years, anthropology has had a number of idols cast down around its ears. The experience is commonplace among disciplines but after-effects are always dismaying. In 1967 widow of Bronislaw Malinowski published his Diary Strict Sense of Word. The diary recorded days of brilliant ethnographer among Trobriand islanders 1920s. That fieldwork was written up Argonauts of Western Pacific (1922) and immediately became exemplar for proper anthropology. Malinowski's apparently total immersion natives' culture had made of fieldwork a controlled experiment; eager to follow such a scientific lead, social anthropology at once made such open-air experimentation an (unscientific) fetish. The Diary came as something of a shock. The entries demonstrated beyond dispute that in field Malinowski often loathed islanders, abused his native informants, slept a lot, drugged himself, longed to be away. Ironists among anthropologists were able to take enjoyment from profession's predictable unease. Clifford Geertz spoke as a member of tribe: one of . . . [our] ancestral figures told truth a public place. There followed a ceremonial wringing of hands and conventional accusations that an in-marrier [the widow] had betrayed clan secrets, profaned an idol, and let side down. Still - the damn thing was, after all, already printed.1 Greg Dening, writing Australia, also used Diary to invite clan to self-reflection. For him Malinowski's tortured self-doubts and selfhate, brutal honesty about trivialities of his interrupted love-life mingled with daily battle against his lethargy belied smooth equanimity of his ethnographic descriptions. There were no charming disavowals of objectivity, just his raw feelings. It was ethnography 'as it really was.' 2 Malinowski's was a voice from grave blowing cover on something significant. It was not that famous anthropologists could be nasty types. Neither was it that anthropology could be shabbily misanthropic nor that Europeans were once again manhandling non-Europeans. The covers came off epistemological procedures that had served to justify anthropological endeavors. The experiential was exposed as being at heart of observation - as being at center of translation, meaning construction, interpretation, all things anthropologists do. The Other, of course - Trobriand islander, Mexican villager - is always object of human construction
| Obras citantes distintas | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citas por año | 0,03 |
| Intervalo de citas | 1993 - 1993 (1) |
| Velocidad de citación | historical |
| Altamente citado | No |
| Tipos de cita | Neutras: 1 |