ANT 100: Notes on how to read ethnography A.

Nading Ethnography is a genre of writing, distinct from fiction, journalism, history, and scientific reporting. Ethnography (literally writing about people), is the life-blood of anthropology. As the studied result of fieldwork and interpretation, it is the form in which our data and theory come together most clearly. It begins with two fundamental postures, common to the liberal arts. The first is Knowing that we dont know. If anthropology teaches us nothing else, it is that although the world of others is fascinating and strange, it is worthwhile to know it on its own terms. The second is accepting that there are multiple ways of understanding the world. Normally we think of this in disciplinary terms. Ethnography asks us to understand human experience through even more radically different conceptual frameworks, namely, those of different cultural and social groups. There is no single truth to be reached at the end of most ethnographies. Further points to consider Ethnographies are about groups, not individuals. Ethnographers draw on the experiences of a limited number of individuals, but those people are almost always types of social persons. Ethnographies describe processes. Events occur, but ethnographers, unlike journalists, are interested in what those events like the Balinese cockfight, tell us about bigger social processes (e.g. Balinese social organization in a postcolonial context). Ethnography is experience-near. Anthropologists try their best to eliminate bias, but as situated observations, the stories they tell are always partial. Anthropologists, unlike many other social scientists, are explicit about the politics and contingency of knowledge production, and you should be, too. As a special genre, ethnography requires a special kind of reading. In reading an ethnography, it is helpful to think about the following points: 1. Argument. The book as a whole will have an argument, like any paper you write or shorter article you read. The argument will be stated (and probably re-stated and refined) in the Introduction. Chapters reinforce that argument, but each chapter also makes its own point. Thus, you need to look for arguments in both places. 2. So what? Books will make arguments for good reasons. As yourself, What is the author trying to teach me by making this argument?

3. Ethnographic data. What evidence is author using to reinforce her argument? Weiners data was a thick description of kula and funerary ritual, which reinforced her argument about the struggle between individual fame and social personhood and the gendered dynamics of Trobriand politics. 4. Comparison. Ethnographic data is always implicitly (and hopefully explicitly) comparative. Weiner was implicitly comparing her study to Malinowskis, for example. As a reader, you can do your own comparing. As you read, think about whether what the ethnographer is describing reminds you of anything else youve read or experienced. Be adventurous in your comparisons, and use them to enhance your understanding. 5. Interpretation. Ethnography is not an attempt to tell the definitive truth about the human condition. After Geertz, it is interpretive and partial. The author will bring her interpretations to the data, and you should bring yours. 6. Style of presentation. Is the author telling a straight, start-to-finish story? In ethnography, this is probably not the case. This does not make it bad writing. Ethnographies are documents about some aspect of what it is like to be a person in a particular sociocultural context.