Ethnography :: Ethnography Reflexivity Anthropology Essays

EthnographyWorks Cited MissingReflexivity has recently been designated as an indicator of postmodernism in anthropological texts. In this context, the practice is attacked as indulgent narcissism, but its true scope reaches much further. While some ethnographical texts exhibit an overemphasis on the author, and his redact within the work, this is one and only(a) extreme of the mental image reflexivity, which also serves as a methodological tool, unincorporated into the writing, and as a means to account for the ethnographers biases and affects on his informants. This entire span of meaning is sh birth in anthropological research and writings, in varying manners and to different ends.An touching example of reflexivity in writing is the much critiqued and criticized essay by Renato Rosaldo, Grief and a Headhunters Rage, wherein he explores his reactions to and accord of Ilongot headhunting, as based on his personal experiences with death, or lack thereof. He argues that most anthropological studies of death eliminate emotions by assuming the position of the most attached observer, a precarious position which often leads to real(a) indifference. (15) He also acknowledges that reflexivity can easily slip into self-absorption, wherein one loses sight of differences which do exist. Despite attacks, by Michaelson and Johnson, that Micheles death gives Renato a newfound sense of ethnographic authority, a sense that he is adequate to(p) of feeling everything that the Ilongot do, he never, in fact, makes this claim. (Behar, 171) Rosaldo, after sharing his experience of his married womans death, and the grief that followed, emphasizes that the statement should not lead anyone to derive a universal from somebody elses personal knowledge. (15) The authors own experience does not give him a full understanding of the Ilongot, nor does he claim that it does so, but allows him to understand his informants explanations of headhunting which he had previously dismis sed, not study grief with rage. Ilongot anger and his own overlap, rather like two circles, partly overlaid and partially separate. (10) Or, as Marcus states it, in any attempt to interpret or explain another cultural subject, a surplus of difference ceaselessly remains. (Marcus, 186)Renato also briefly addresses the question of authority raised by reflexivity, and the admittance of ones shortcomings. What was once accepted as absolute rightfulness is now being questioned, as the ethnographer acknowledges his own subjectivity, and with the realization that the objects of analysis ar also analyzing subjects who critically interrogate ethnographers.