UNDERSTANDING ETHNOGRAPHIES

Ch-1: Introduction:Partial Truths

~James Clifford

James Clifford in his work on “Writing Culture” describes his perspectives on developing
methods, concepts, and processes in anthropology. Clifford’s main arguments and critiques
focus on the idea that ethnographies have inherently become “partial truths”, which makes it
impossible for an individual to understand the whole truth. This approach focuses on
anthropologists who are focused on writing (as opposed to fieldwork) and the problems that
this creates. The simple idea is that anthropological writing does not present a real culture or
society. Instead, anthropological writing constructs or invents cultures and societies, just like
fiction. Consequently, such “partial truths” make it difficult for ethnographers to gain a
complete awareness of a group’s history and culture. Early evolutionists, asserted that
anthropology maintains an objective view of cultures and societies. Clifford, on the other
hand, argues that the field is inherently subjective. Clifford claims that contemporary
ethnographies are subjective due to the fact that anthropologists use their knowledge and
biases to evaluate a different culture; as a result, it is impossible for an anthropologist to
attain a complete understanding of a specific culture. Clifford’s ideas and examples
encapsulate perfectly the importance of subjectivity, reflexivity and difficulties of
Ethnographic writings.

Clifford starts off by describing how participant observation in itself is not a complex task
and writing the ethnographies is where things get complicated. Writing was for long only
seen as a method and the actual importance was given to the Immediacy of experience in the
actual field i.e. participation observation was considered superior to actual writing the
ethnography. He describes how the trends have changed in ethnographic writings and this is
not the case anymore. It is now very well acknowledged that ethnographic writings are a
significant part of the anthropological processes and that science and literary fields often
penetrate one another and how cultural writings can be experimental and scientific. He
further describes how the focus on text making and rhetoric serves to highlight the fact that
cultural accounts are constructed and artificial. Ethnography (at least historically) has been
caught up in the invention of cultures, instead of simply the representation. Significance of
going beyond the cultural texts to focus on Historical, political, and other contexts is often
ignored.Ethnographies are also situated in powerful systems Of meanings which help decode
and recode societal forces. It questions boundaries of civilizations, cultures , genders, races
Etc while Establishing grounds for inclusion and exclusion Therefore all ethnographies
include some sort of biasness and are an interplay between politics and society.
Ethnographies are also highly interdisciplinary phenomenon which make up for the subject
matter of any discipline focused on Culture and attached rhetorics. This complex
interdisciplinary causes a lot of difficulties due to lack of consensus on the theories and
methodologies between different disciplines.

Clifford then moves to talk about the recent Popularity of literary writing in human sciences.
Many influential anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz, Claude Levi Strauss, Edmund leach
and others have shown considerable interest in literary approaches which blurs the overall
distinction between Art and science. Historically, appreciation of literary culture has been
kept at a distant from the rigorous core of the Discipline but The notion that literary
procedures are important for cultural writings has been developed recently. The literary-ness
of anthropology is more than Simple writing style as these processes influence the very
manner in which cultures are portrayed or registered In ethnographies. It has been further
asserted that even in sceintific anthropology, ethnographic writing is a form of art, and that
ethnographies have literary qualities which are deemed evocative or artfully composed in
addition to be factual and present an objective analysis along with a description (Subjective
analysis). This assertion though is not common all anthropologists Due to lack of coherence
in the discipline itself. Four-fields are considered to exist under anthropology itself-
physical/biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural/social anthropology, and linguistics.
These fields lack a unified approach or object. Rodney Needham surveyed this theoretical
incoherence among the different fields and suggested that they might eventually be
redistributed into neighboring disciplines.

It has been long observed in western sciences that literary processes have been excluded
from their legitimate writing authority by arguing against their subjective nature and
comparing them to fiction. Literary texts were seen to be metaphoric and allegoric instead of
factual. The literary language of fiction has been condemned in scientific traditions due to the
ambiguity that it contains but regardless scientific writing has an always will be literary in
one sense or another. This discourse shifted in the 19th century when literature came to be
seen as a form of art by the bourgeois class and came to be appreciated But it was still kept at
a distance from scientific studies due to their transient and dynamic nature. Ethnographies
were not readily associated with art by bourgeois to preserve their rebellious
identity, instead Ethnographic writing was determined in at least 6 ways: Contextually (it
draws from and creates meaningful social milieux), Rhetorically(it uses and is used by
expressive conventions), Institutionally ( one writes within (and against) specific traditions,
disciplines, and audiences), Generically (an ethnography is generally distinguishable from a
novel or travel account), Politically (the authority to represent cultural realities is unequally
shared and at times contested), and Historically(all the above conventions and constraints are
changing). Ethnographies are also somewhat to be seen associated with
fiction. If fiction is defined as "something made or fashioned" then ethnographic writings are
fictional due to their constructive qualities as ethnographies are descriptions of what was
observed in the field, a description which is heavily influenced by perceptions and literary
styles of ethnographers. Some social scientists have begun calling good ethnographies "true
fictions" and argue “Even the best ethnographic texts - serious, true fictions - are systems, or
economies, of truth." Ethnographic truths are thus inherently partial- committed and
incomplete. This notion is heavily contested because of its lack of verifiability. To further
supplement this point, The case of “first time knowledge” is taken into consideration. First
time knowledge refers to the data and facts collected in form of oral testimonies subjects of
an ethnographic study. These oral testimonies, considered as one of the most significant
sources of ethnographic facts are highly distorted in nature and only reveal partial truth. This
first time knowledge is not only incomplete But it's also very contextual and observed in
power laden situations (the influences of power, history and institutionals are often ignored
while writing an ethnography) thus supplementing to the notion of partiality.

Moving forward Clifford talks about the significance of understanding the power relations
and contextual influences on ethnographic texts. Power relations formal and informal along
with power inequalities Have historically determined And constrained ethnographic
Practices. Even though ethnographic practices operate within a system of imbalance of power
sometimes these writings can also challenge these inequalities. New discourses such as that
of “indigenous ethnographers” have emerged in a neo-colonial/ modern world. This discourse
though empowering, does not necessarily mean it leads to “better ethnographies” but they
certainly have repositioned anthropology with respect to objects of it’s study. Anthropology
therefore is no longer seen to have the automatic authority to speak for others who were
unable to speak for themselves ( primitive people). Cultures are dynamic attempts to make
them look static leads to over generalization of phenomenon while studying culture. This is
where political/theoretical critique of colonialism and western forces comes in, showcasing
their inability to represent other Societies even somewhat accurately. What they consider to
be absolute truth Partial in the sense that it is merely a Restrictive and constrained account
which is somewhat a result of the overwhelming urge of the human sciences to appear
objective,and ignoring the influences of political, institutional , and historical contexts.
Another critique under the same is that of “Visualism”. this critique focuses on the
overwhelming emphasis on participant observation and writing accounts based off on visual
cues, Ignoring other important observing senses such as dialogue. visualism somehow also
paved the way for orientalism which is observing from a privileged standpoint. The West by
giving too much importance to the spatial visual observation inevitably create us versus them
bias, while objectifying the ones being studied by the one studying. Alternative methodology
could be using literary processes to make the ethnographies more evocative and
comprehensive while reducing the biases. This pays attention to the discursive (dynamic)
aspect of ethnographies. The discursive aspect of ethnographies is especially significant
because it Draws attention not just to the interpretation of a phenomenon but allows it to be
studied in a relational manner (in relation to the context where it was produced). Diverse
writing styles under the discursive aspect allows for a more holistic perspective towards the
cultural text. This brings us to the subjectivity versus objectivity debate. Since beginning of
ethnographic traditions cultural writings are composed of both subjective and objective
perspectives in balanced amounts when the texts are written, but in the interpretation of the
text the author's subjective voice is usually separated from the objective facts that are
mentioned. In The 60s this problem became especially evident when subjectivity started to
be seen as distortion of facts and inevitably led to Questioning of the ethnographer's voice.
In response, A new trend of self reflexive ethnographic accounts came into being Which
described how culture can not just be observed objectively instead has to be described
subjectively keeping in mind the contexts it exists in. The self reflective accounts provided
Whole new insights on how participant observation is highly based on subject testimonies as
well which testimonies are then interpreted by ethnographers and therefore they do not tell
the absolute truth of the society or culture being studied as the testimonies as well as the
interpretation of them can both be perceived by different people in different manners. With
this the author by no means aims to discredit the use of oral testimonies but instead just
wishes to place a warning against considering them as the absolute reality. Furthermore the
discursive aspect by exemplifying traditional ethnography, criticizes their notion of only a
single authoritative voice which often suppressed multiple diverse perspectives. Instead
Clifford Urges Towards a shift to Poly-vocality to better Comprehend complex nature of
ethnographies. Clifford gives the example of James walker and his famous monograph to
exemplify how the ethnographies can be enriched with the help of local interpreters offering
many insights that a simple participant observation would have missed. This work offers an
unusual record of a comprehensive ethnography which was very well contextually placed.
Walker also published an extended version in which he gave proper subjective analysis which
provided a lot more insights to the culture of Oglala society opening a world of new
meanings and possibilities. It is to be kept in mind though that walker’s example is an
unusual collaborative work which is not easily observed in anthropological traditions due to
political and institutional constraints. Apart from the problem of limited perspectives and
objectivity, Clifford talks about the problem of gender and how ethnographic records are
based off on lives of men in a particular culture and all the observations are mostly based off
on male experiences with very little insights on everyday lives and experiences of women in
the same cultures. Even if women’s views are mentioned, they are done to supplement or
agree with male experiences and no new exclusively female point of views are explored in
ethnographies. This generalised view of society based entirely on men’s experience is not the
result of uncertainty but instead ignorance where women’s views are deliberately ignored and
male experiences are taken in as the only reality. The feminist movement has highlighted the
prevalence of male-centric biases in cultural representations. However, it is essential to
acknowledge that all interpretations are inherently subjective and limited. Recent attempts to
rectify these biases must consider the historical and political contexts that contributed to their
development. Cultural understanding is dynamic and contested, continually evolving through
ongoing discourse. There is no singular, definitive understanding of culture, and our
perceptions are inherently shaped by our individual perspectives. The fact that women’s
perspectives are now being studied to rectify the mistakes of the past further uncovered how
male experience itself is severely understudied. The problem becomes more complex when
we look at issues of sexuality and others in contexts of relations such as kinship ties etc.

In conclusion, Clifford aims to highlight the evolution of ethnography in understanding

diverse cultures. He emphasizes the need for a more reflexive approach, considering the
interconnectedness of societies and the challenges of defining cultural boundaries. The
authors argue that ethnography is not just a traditional study of cultures, but a hybrid textual
activity that traverses genres and disciplines. They recognize the importance of ethnographic
texts in understanding diverse cultures and the need for new, better modes of writing. The
essays also acknowledge the contingencies that influence the writing and reading of
ethnography, and the need to confront these openly. Ultimately, the collection suggests that
ethnography is always a form of writing, one that requires a nuanced understanding of the
complex historical, rhetorical, and political contexts in which it is produced.

Ch-2: Ethnography as a theory

~ Laura Nader

The author, Laura Nader in her attempt to describe ethnographies, argues how ethnographies
are not simple descriptions but instead are theoretical in nature. By examining the
relationships between cultural facts and principles, ethnography provides a comprehensive
understanding of societies as interconnected systems. Historically, ethnographic research has
involved immersive participant observation, aiming to capture the perspectives of the studied
community, including their perceptions of the anthropologist. However, the reality of
ethnographic practice is complex, involving multiple layers of interpretation. Ethnographers
must navigate the discrepancies between what people say, do, and want to present to the
observer. Consequently, ethnography is not just descriptive, but also theoretical in its
approach, constituting a theory of description that acknowledges the intricacies of cultural
representation.

Nader further describes how the concept of capturing an entire culture is complex, and there
is no consensus on what constitutes a complete understanding. Similarly, there is ongoing
debate about what makes ethnographic reporting factual. This lack of agreement has actually
been a strength for anthropology's ethnography, driving a dynamic process of refinement and
adaptation to changing contexts. Throughout its history, ethnography has evolved, from
romanticized notions of "being there" to critically engaged and ecological approaches.
Influential ethnographers like James Mooney, W.H.R. Rivers, Gregory Bateson, and Edmund
Leach have contributed to this evolution, moving away from laboratory-style experiments
and linear hypothesis-testing towards more nuanced and contextual understandings of
cultures.

Early ethnographers, despite lacking a unified doctrine or model, shared a common approach:
they observed, stayed, and wrote about cultures. They were methodologically flexible and
innovative, often incorporating quantitative techniques. Their work, driven by a sense of
urgency to preserve non-Western cultures, was guided by unstated standards. These
standards, established by the 1950s, included focusing on non-Western societies, treating
them as bounded entities, and ignoring power dynamics and similarities with Western
cultures. However, the influence of philosophers like Wittgenstein, Cassirer, and Langer
hinted at future questioning of these standards. Initially, participant observation in non-
Western societies was justified as a as of defamiliarization, allowing ethnographers to
challenge their own assumptions and gain new insights. The traditional approach to
anthropology involves participant observation in culturally unfamiliar settings, such as island
communities in the Pacific, tribal villages in Africa, or pueblos in the American Southwest.
This method aims to uncover the intricacies of social systems, treating them as bounded
entities, often modeled after Radcliffe-Brown's organic metaphor of society. However, this
approach has been criticized for its limitations, such as neglecting power dynamics and
historical context. For instance, Clifford Geertz's seminal essay on the Balinese cockfight
(1973) overlooked the massacre of half a million people by Indonesian government forces,
mentioning it only in a footnote. Geertz's later work, "After the Fact" (1995), continued this
trend, downplaying the 1966 massacres in Pare, Indonesia, as "hardly... a memory at all."
This elision reflects a broader issue in anthropology's history, where significant events are
marginalized or omitted.

Despite these criticisms, anthropology has remained open to innovation, incorporating

diverse theoretical frameworks, from functionalism and structural functionalism to
interpretive, symbolic, feminist, and critical approaches. Throughout the 20th century,
anthropological theory has evolved in a non-linear fashion, with multiple perspectives
coexisting and influencing one another. For example, Geertz borrowed from philosophers
like Wittgenstein, Cassirer, and Langer, rejecting positivism and embracing a more reflexive
and literary ethnography. Today, anthropologists continue to draw upon various theoretical
and methodological frameworks, recognizing the complexity and nuance of human cultures.
Nader takes examples of different classic ethnographies and scholars and takes us many
debates related to the subject.

1. James Mooney's 1896 multi-reservation project pioneered a critical approach to

ethnography, focusing on control, resistance, social movements, and human rights of
 Native Americans. Mooney's work challenged prevailing views by including white
Europeans in his narrative, highlighting the interconnectedness of colonizers and
colonized. His comparative analysis aimed to provoke sympathy for Indian
deprivations and advocate for their protection. However, this approach invited
criticism from missionaries, government officials, educators, and anthropologists who
sought to "civilize" Native Americans. Mooney's inclusive ethnography violated the
conventional "us versus them" approach, leading to his exclusion from further
fieldwork on American reservations. Mooney's forward-thinking approach preceded
the American Anthropological Association's Code of Ethics by decades. His work
demonstrated specialized competence, incorporating the perspectives of both
colonizers and colonized on equal footing.

2. Bronislaw Malinowski's 1922 work with the Trobriand islanders established three
methodological tenets for ethnographic research: statistical documentation, attention
to everyday life, and recording native thought patterns. Malinowski, who had a
background in philosophy, mathematics, and physics, aimed to grasp the native's
perspective and vision of the world. His approach was groundbreaking, but also faced
criticism from contemporaries, who questioned his scientific grounds for emphasizing
the importance of magic in Trobriand culture. Malinowski's innovative multi-sited
fieldwork and description of the Kula ring, a reciprocal trade and friendship network,
highlighted the reasonable and mutually supportive nature of Trobriand social
relationships. By portraying Trobriand life as reasonable, Malinowski consciously
challenged European notions of "primitives" acting solely out of self-interest. His
ethnography implicitly spoke to Western societies, making observations about law,
order, magic, science, religion, and sexuality, without explicit comparison.

3. In 1932, Reo Fortune's "Sorcerers of Dobu" challenged colonial administrators' views

on sorcery as barbarism. Fortune, a New Zealand ethnographer, relativized sorcery as
a form of social control, highlighting its strategic importance in societies lacking
developed legal mechanisms. By giving sorcery standing, Fortune violated the
colonial normative frame, which degraded sorcery and its practitioners. Although his
work was enabled by colonial control, Fortune opposed the social turmoil caused by
colonial administration. Unlike some anthropologists, Fortune did not share the goal
of "civilizing" natives. His independent stance led to him being banned from
fieldwork in Papua after 1930 and excluded from government posts post-World War
II. Nevertheless, Fortune continued his work at Cambridge University.

4. In the mid-20th century, anthropologists Max Gluckman, Epstein, and Peter Worsley
faced accusations of being left-wing or communist, leading to denied access to field
sites, echoing James Mooney's experience. Gluckman's 1940-42 publication,
"Analysis of a social situation in modern Zululand," challenged the concept of a
bounded tribe, instead highlighting South Africa as a single, heterogeneous society
with overlapping cultures. His immersive fieldwork approach, living among the
natives, sparked criticism and accusations of being pro-Russian and communist,
resulting in a ban from further fieldwork. Similarly, E.E. Evans-Pritchard's 1937
ethnography, "Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande," described the
rational role of witchcraft in Azande life, contradicting British colonial administrators'
views. These anthropologists, along with others, disturbed received knowledge and
challenged colonial norms, demonstrating that primitive mentality as a concept
 remains misplaced. Later, in 1996, the editor encountered similar publishing
challenges while arguing against this concept in "Naked Science: Anthropological
Inquiry into Boundaries, Power, and Knowledge."

Despite exceptions, Nader describes how anthropologists have historically been complicit
with Euro-American colonialism, using colonialist terms like "primitives" and conceiving of
their own world as civilized. Evolutionary and comparative approaches have also been
problematic, imposing Western categories on non-Western societies. However, some
anthropologists have challenged these norms.

Gregory Bateson's "Naven" (1936, 1958) is a notable example, violating traditional

ethnographic rules by focusing on a single ceremony rather than the entire society. Bateson's
work is an experiment in explanation, using different lenses to understand the ceremony and
critiquing standard ethnographic approaches. He argues that theoretical concepts are merely
descriptions of scientists' knowledge processes and challenges the idea that change,
innovation, and conflict are pathological. Bateson's work is a pioneering example of cultural
critique, predating later works by Marcus and Fischer. Moving forward, Edmund Leach
believed anthropology should focus on both "them" and "us," challenging the traditional
attribution of ignorance and childishness to native people. He advocated for assuming
rationality and credibility in all societies, as Malinowski wrote in "Magic, Science and
Religion" (1948). Leach rejected double standards, racist ideologies, and the preservationist
ethic, also criticizing applied anthropology as neo-colonialist. He introduced the concept of
positioned knowledge, recognizing that anthropologists and informants are differently
situated, making objectivity impossible. Leach's thoughts remain relevant still.

Eric Wolf's observation that anthropology reflects the society it is part of highlights the
importance of examining our own cultural biases and power dynamics. This is particularly
relevant in the context of rapid globalization, new imperialisms, and the need to reinvent
anthropology. Recent ethnographies have begun to address these changes, studying topics
such as Bolivian Indians in a globalized mining industry (Nash, 1979), nuclear weapons
workers in the US (Gusterson, 1996), menopause constructions in Japan and North America
(Lock, 1993), and memories of revolt in Palestine (Swedenburg, 1995). These studies
demonstrate how ethnographic localities are now embedded in larger global circuits,
connected by exchange and power dynamics. Even community-based ethnographies, like
Nader's own work on dispute resolution in a Zapotec village (1990), have worldwide
significance, revealing techniques of pacification used in international law and trade
agreements. This shift in ethnographic focus highlights the need for anthropology to adapt to
changing global realities.

In conclusion, Nader argues that Despite the innovative contributions of ethnographers like
Nash, Gusterson, Lock, and Swedenburg, their works have faced opposition and dismissal,
labeled as "journalistic," "political," "non-analytic," or "unscientific." This backlash stems
from their bold approach: placing themselves, their societies, and their subjects on equal
footing. By doing so, they cross an unspoken line, challenging traditional notions of scientific
objectivity. However, it is now widely acknowledged that science is inherently political and
subjective. Claims of objectivity merely conceal the scientist's biases. As anthropology
continues to evolve, it is crucial to recognize and challenge these entrenched power
dynamics, embracing innovative, eclectic, and open-ended approaches that foster a more
nuanced understanding of our complex, interconnected world.
 Ch-3: How to Read ethnographies
~ Paloma Gay Y Blasco, Huan War

Introduction:

This book is a guide to reading ethnography, aimed at those new to the field of intellectual
refreshment. It lays out the central codes, conventions, and concerns of ethnographic writing
and explores how anthropologists use them to create and transmit knowledge about diverse
experiential worlds. The book provides readers with the skills to analyze ethnographic texts
and investigate distinctive qualities of anthropological knowledge. Anthropology textbooks
traditionally take one of two approaches: presenting information or summarizing theoretical
standpoints. The book focuses on enabling readers to read ethnography critically and think
anthropologically by submitting ethnographic texts to the anthropological gaze and
unpacking them as cultural products.

The book believes that ethnographic writing is a valuable and distinctive way of asking and
answering the question of what it means to be human. Writers of ethnography approach this
issue in a unique manner, framing their field experiences in terms of anthropological
standards, concepts, and debates. The ethnographic arguments that result draw from and
contribute to wider flows and eddies of the human conversation. There are key concerns and
techniques to written ethnographic writing present across a continuum of aims, values, and
styles. These elements form the basis for anthropological dialogues and expressions of
difference, providing an intellectual core to the discipline.

This book explores the role of ethnographic writing in producing anthropological knowledge,
addressing fundamental questions about shared concerns and understandings that enable
communication and debate among anthropologists of different persuasions. It aims to identify
how these concerns mold ethnographic texts and the technical and stylistic principles upon
which the discipline is based. The book's structure follows the unraveling of these questions,
with chapters 1, 2, and 3 examining the basic concerns addressed in all ethnographic texts.
These include understanding different cultural or social life worlds through comparison,
demonstrating patterns or logic in the life world, and examining the distinctive stylistic
devices, techniques, and modes of argument used by anthropologists to address these
concerns. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 discuss the social and cultural settings within which
ethnographies are produced, the relationship between ethnographic texts and their audiences,
and the creation of an authoritative ethnographic voice. This discussion leads to a
consideration of how ethnographic texts relate to each other and to disciplinary
conversations. In conclusion, the book argues that ethnographic writing delivers a distinct
kind of knowledge and emphasizes the continuing importance of ethnography for a
conversation about what it means to be human.

Ethnographic Concerns:
Ethnography writers aim to make the ways of living and thinking of specific groups of people
intelligible to their readers, regardless of their foreignness or familiarity. They start by setting
their object of study against parameters comprehensible to their readers, and because they
write within a tradition, they use anthropological knowledge and debate as their point of
reference. This means that ethnographic descriptions are always comparative, and the
concepts and analytical tools used by anthropologists to mold these descriptions and construct
their arguments are also designed to enable comparison. Comparison is the first stage and
strategy through which writers of ethnography attempt to make sense for their audiences of
very different ways of knowing and behaving. They use contextualization to establish the
distance between significant detail and content within a context, and how they understand and
interpret one by reference to the other. The smallest detail is only meaningful when
considered as an aspect of a pattern, but the pattern itself is an elaboration of integral details.

Ethnographers also study human life through various relationships, such as between husbands
and wives, workmates, and leaders and followers. They aim to abstract a past pattern of
relationships from one-off statements and behaviors, using this abstract delineation to
understand specific contextual instances and details. They also look for the relationships, both
links and discontinuities between different areas and levels of experience, such as activities
and rationalizations. Ethnographers often focus on their own relationships with others during
fieldwork to gain further analytical perspective on a context. This approach helps to
understand the broader social and cultural dynamics of human life.

Distinctiveness of Ethnography:

Ethnography involves comparing, contextualizing, and considering meaning and action

relationally to understand the purposes and significance of activities or beliefs. These three
kintral prisms help writers of ethnography create specific social and cultural worlds for their
readers. Two novels, The Age of Innocence and Altered Carbon, use these strategies to create
specific social and cultural worlds.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton provides a detailed anatomy of New York upper-
class society, focusing on the peculiarity and arbitrariness of moral conventions observed by
Archer. Wharton uses Archer's relationship with Countess Ellen Olenska to highlight the
distinctiveness of old New York and gives meaning to his life in relation to this
distinctiveness. Wharton uncovers the organizing principles behind the specific relationships
she describes, allowing us to understand the life of old New Yorkers in general and Archer's
motives and behavior. The moral values he has internalized are compelling reconscapes, but
he cannot escape and cannot leave his wife. The end result is culturally specific mores that
appear absolute and necessary to those who live by them.

In Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon, the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, is a hitman who
witnesses the reunion of a young black man with his wife and children. Morgan plays with
comparison, positing that our intuitive understanding of our own society serves as the final
reference point for the core imagined future of the novel. The protagonist's actions and
expressions are meaningful against specific social and cultural patterns familiar to us. These
patterns can only be understood if the society itself is contextualized and its relational pattern
exposed.
Cultural comparison, contextualization, and analysis of relationships in unfamiliar are
important to other forms of writing about human experience, such as fiction. These elements
are deployed for a very specific, ethnographic, distinctive end. Henrietta Mooreg's 1986
book, Space, Text and Gender, explores the relationship between Endo men and women in
Kenya, focusing on the hearth and the ash that comes from it. Moore's work emphasizes the
cultural specificity of morality and the importance of understanding the relationship between
Endo men and women through their symbolic use of space.

In this text, the author discusses an incident involving two girls from Sibou village who were
cleaning their house and compound. Chepkore was removing ash from the fireplace, and
while doing so, she met her friend Jerop. Chepkore tilted the ash container towards Jerop,
which Jerop laughed at. This seemingly simple gesture of mock aggression is a reflection of
friendship and intimacy. However, the text also highlights the destructive power of ash,
which is associated with socially and sexually destructive aspects of womanhood. Ash's
destructive nature is harmful to both men and male interests, making it unthinkable for a man
to remove ash from the hearth. The author further discusses the positive connotations of ash,
including its linkage to female sexuality and creativity, and its significance within the fertility
of the clan as a whole. The Endo believe that ash can mean many different things, and its
multivocality is not due to an inherent ambiguity of meaning, but rather a recognition of a
more literal meaning. This literal meaning gives access to a series of secondary meanings or
significations. The author uses the Endo material to enter a long-standing anthropological
conversation about symbols, their roles in social and cultural life, and the concepts of
multivocality, polysemic, metaphorical, and context. Her analysis contributes to this
discussion, and the distinctiveness of her position is evident to readers familiar with the ideas
and theories discussed.

This book compares Moore's ethnography with two novels by focusing on explicit
comparison, contextualization, and interpretation. Moore addresses a field of associations
beyond Western assumptions and lists them as items to consider. The ethnography process is
primarily for intellectual consideration, not for intuitive-aesthetic appreciation. Readers are
not arretic and are asked to try out the feasibility of Moore's analysis, not just her description.
Moore responds to the theoretical viewpoints and ethnographic descriptions of other
anthropologists and takes an authorial stance. This means that readers are not asked to
suspend their disbelief to engage with the alternative world on offer, as in Altered Carbon and
The Age of Innocence. Instead, they will hold the ethnographer accountable for the factuality
of what she says, while using their aesthetic and imaginative senses to enter her account.
Ethnographic knowledge is crucial but only one aspect of it. By providing a full account of an
experiential life world, ethnography can challenge established ways of understanding what it
means to be human. It can also have a liberating role, freeing us to think outside of our own
understanding.

Shaping Ethnography :

Ethnography is not just a reflection on experiences, but a reflection on, examination, and
argument about experiences made from a particular standpoint that responds to questions
rooted in the history of anthropological thinking. Ethnographers must consider the gap
between the text and the lived reality they try to explain, as there is always a tension between
the chaos and diversity of experience and the transcription of that experience in a text.
Ethnographers draw on anthropological concepts and discussions, but there is always a
distance between the knowledge of experience put forward in ethnography and the local ways
of knowing and making sense of the world that the ethnography is trying to explain. All
ethnography is shaped by the inevitability of dealing with the gaps between life and text, and
between local and anthropological perspectives.

In Chapter 4, anthropologists transform experience into analysis through narrative, and their
narrations of the immediacy of everyday life are shaped by the need to deliver ethnographic
knowledge and contribute to anthropological conversations. Different narrative styles serve
different ends in ethnographic texts, from highly uniform descriptions of collective life to
fleeting notations of a personal response to particular situations. Narratives of the immediate
function as the building blocks of anthropological claims to knowledge. In Chapter 5, the
processes through which experience becomes evidence and evidence is conjoined as
argument are examined. Ethnographic arguments are always positioned positively vis-à-vis
others, and the use of conceptual or jargon terminology in ethnographies must be understood
with this in mind. Ethnography is a genre that draws on anthropological debates, concepts,
and analytical tools to understand what it has seen and lived through in the field. It is this
framing within anthropological debate that sets ethnography apart from other genres.
Ethnographic texts engage anthropology as a body of knowledge and discussion, taking on
wider meaning as contributions to a broader anthropological conversation. In Chapter 6, the
authors explore the relationship between ethnography and the broader context within which it
is written, arguing that the text and its context are inseparable. Ethnographers are social
actors writing within particular sociocultural contexts and for specific audiences, making the
context part of the text's fabric. The intellectual climate at the time an ethnography is written
shapes its production from fieldwork onwards, and wider social, cultural, and political
milieus impact the production of ethnographic texts.

Ethnographic authorship must be seen as relational, as writers emerge as agents with the
capacity to know within specific sociocultural contexts and audiences. The ambiguation of
agency in ethnographic texts works to reaffirm the authority of the author, and the
ethnographer as author will be answerable for their text as knowledge.Ethnographies exist as
contributions to larger anthropological conversations, and while the history of anthropology
is often taught as the supplanting of one kind of theoretical paradigm by another, the actual
circulation of anthropological knowledge is much less squarely cut. Understanding
ethnography as the expression of richer under-relationships and the pattern of intellectual
commitment formed is crucial for understanding the ongoing movement between personal
intellectual commitment and the bigger anthropology.

Conclusion:

This book is a collaborative effort between two practicing anthropologists and ethnographers,
Paloma Gay y Blasco and David A. Schroeder. The authors aim to convey an open-ended
conversation through the organization of the book, with key themes introduced from one
perspective and then re-explored within others as the text unfolds. They have not always
agreed on the priorities of ethnography or anthropology, and this remains true even as they
add final words and corrections. The core chapters in the book consist of excerpts from
ethnographies published in English, in-depth commentary on these excerpts, and a
cumulative argument derived from both. The authors are not primarily concerned with
exposing the chronology of anthropological ideas or discussing schools of thought in
anthropology and their contrary perspetives on social life. Instead, they focus on the common
thematic and stylistic elements characteristic of ethnography. In each chapter, they mix
together texts of very varied theoretical orientations, written at different times by academics
from diverse scholarly traditions.

The authors have chosen to use ethnographic selections that were familiar to them, written by
anthropologists whose work they know well, sometimes made known to them by people who
have taught them anthropology or with whom they have collegial relationships. Many of the
ethnographies highlighted in the book were authored by figures they consider important or
interesting given the pattern of their lives as professional anthropologists. Others were found
to illustrate a point of a trend particularly well.The authors do not claim that the ethnographic
extracts they base their discussion on here are representative in some general or absolute
sense; the amount of thematic and historical ethnography written by anthropologists and its
diversity precludes that. Instead, they have created a heuristic picture based partly on their
response as readers, partly on their expectations as anthropologists, and partly on their
practice as ethnographers.

The book includes extracts from many different ethnographies, which readers can browse
alongside the relevant analysis, perhaps using them as starting points for further research.
Each of the eight main chapters deals with a specific theme and exists in a relatively self-
contained form. The authors aim to give ethnography its due and its place by cutting through
tightly intertwined understandings and expectations concerning it.