The Uncertain Self in Ethnographic Research and Writing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.18355Keywords:
reflexivity, self-representation, positionality, ethnographic writingAbstract
This article asks the ethnographer to revisit questions about representing the self as an ethnographic researcher in the context of fieldwork, but especially in dialogue with readers through scholarly writing. How does—or can—the ethnographer maintain transparency about how their social positions shape their research questions, access to material and fieldwork spaces, conversation partners, and theorizing? Using a particular example of the author’s own experience in misunderstanding the ways in which she was received by her interlocuters in the field, this article suggests that the ethnographer must rethink how the researcher self is formed by writing about the “messiness” of fieldwork, and not relying on simple statements of positionality in ethnographic writing.
Downloads
References
Bachrach, Emilia 2014 Reading the Medieval in the Modern: The Living Tradition of Hagiography in the Vallabh Sect of Contemporary Gujarat. PhD dissertation. Austin: University of Texas at Austin.
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994 The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.
Butler, Judith 1988 Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal 40(4): 519–31. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893
Covington-Ward, Yolanda 2016 Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021853718000221
Daswani, Girish 2019 On the Whiteness of Anthropology. Online: https://everydayorientalism.wordpress.com/2019/07/08/on-the-whiteness-of-anthropology/ (accessed August 25, 2019).
Gandhi, Shreena, Sailaja Krishnamurti, Harshita Mruthinti Kamath, Tanisha Ramachandran and Shana Sippy 2020 More than a Reading List: Challenging Anti-Black Racism in the Field of South Asian Religions. Online: https://downwithbrownblog.com/2020/06/18/morethan-a-reading-list-challenging-anti-black-racism-in-the-field-of-south-asianreligions/ (accessed June 18, 2020).
Haraway, Donna 1988 Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–99. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Lichterman, Paul 2017 Interpretive Reflexivity in Ethnography. Ethnography 18(1): 35–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138115592418
Madison, D. Soyini 2006 The Dialogic Performative in Critical Ethnography. Text and Performance Quarterly 26(4): 320–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462930600828675
McCarthy Brown, Karen 2001 Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.1994.21.3.02a00340
McGregor, R. S. 1993 The Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Myerhoff, Barbara, and Jay Ruby 1982 Introduction. In A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology, edited by Jay Ruby, 1–35. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512806434-003
