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Writing about anthropology in 2008 means to take an account of Writing Culture (Clifford / Marcus 1986) – the book denoting postmodernism and new approaches to research culture. As theanthrogeek on AnthroBlogs criticizes on anthropological journalism, “This term does not hold much cogency in either field, aside from discussions about their methodological similarities. With the intense focus many anthropologists expend on matters of ‘authorship’ and ‘authority’, I assume there is much more discussion about these matters that I am simply not aware of” (theanthrogeek March 23, 2008). A first Public Anthropology project I got to know was Robert Borofsky s website http://www.publicanthropology.org. In the following, I consider web journalism and writing referring to the internet, too.
"Anthropologists seek to inform their professional colleagues while journalists inform the public. The spirit of Anthro-Journalism seeks an anthropology that is more public-spirited and more willing to share anthropological insights with a wider range of people. The spirit of Anthro-Journalism also seeks journalists and editors who, in order to develop deeper understandings, are willing and able to investigate and report on human events and issues in a comparative, holistic, and culturally non-biased manner" (Fillmore 2008).
Randolph Fillmore mentions Fritjof Capra s account on future writers,
"In his book, The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (1982) physical anthropologist Fritjof Capra suggests that ‘...in the future journalists will change their thinking from fragmentary to holistic modes and develop a new professional ethic based on sociological and ecological awareness. Instead of concentrating on sensational presentations of aberrant, violent, and destructive happenings, reporters and editors will have to analyze the complex social and cultural patterns that form the context of such events, as well as reporting the quiet, constructive and integrative activities going on in our culture’ "(Fillmore 2008).
Stephen A. Tyler (1986) writes about ethnographic documents,
"Because post – modern ethnography privileges ‘discourse’ over ‘text’, it foregrounds dialogue as opposed to monologue, and emphasizes the cooperative and collaborative nature of the ethnographic situation in contrast to the ideology of the transcendental observer. In fact, it rejects the ideology of ‘observer – observed’, there being nothing observed and no one who is observer. There is instead the mutual, dialogical production of a discourse, of a story of sorts" (Tyler 1986: 126).
This makes clear, that ethnologies and ethnographies are processes of giving voice to “the observed”, and as Tyler explains, “ […] in one of its ideal forms, would result in a polyphonic text, none of whose participants would have the final word in the form of a framing story or encompassing synthesis – a discourse on the discourse” (Tyler 1986: 126). With polyphony he means a ‘perspectival relativity’, which should be expressed in a form, that emerges ‘out of the joint work of the ethnographer and his native partners’ (Tyler 1986: 127). “In this respect, the model of post – modern ethnography is not the newspaper but that original ethnography” (Tyler 1986: 127), and later on the reader learns, that ethnographies do not “locate itself exclusively within the problematics of a single tradition of discourse” (Tyler 1986: 129). On his essays he writes,
"Each deals in one way or another with discourse and rhetoric, and each characterizes the tension between the possible worlds of common sense and the impossible worlds of science and politics. Together they tell how the rhetorical modes of ethics (ethos), science (eidos), and politics (pathos) are sensorial allegories whose root metaphors ‘saying/hearing’, ‘seeing/showing’, ‘doing/acting’ respectively create the discourses of value, representation, and work" (Tyler 1986: 122).
Reference:
AnthroBlogs: http://www.anthroblogs.org 5/9/2008 7:10:43 PM
Borofsky, Robert (2001) Public Anthropology: http://www.publicanthropology.org 5/9/2008 7:16:38 PM
Tyler, Stephen (1986) Post – Modern Ethnography: From Document of the Occult to Occult Document, In: Clifford, James / Marcus, George E.: Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 122 – 140.
Fillmore, Randolph: “Anthro – Journalism”: http://anthropology.buffalo.edu/CASC/ajrf.html 5/10/2008 6:16:08 PM
Lett, James: Anthropology & Journalism: http://faculty.ircc.cc.fl.us/faculty/jlett/Article%20on%20Anthropology%20and%20Journalism.htm 5/10/2008 6:10:35 PM
Making Anthropology Public: http://makinganthropologypublic.wordpress.com 5/9/2008 7:12:59 PM
theanthrogeek (March 23, 2008) Anthropology Journalism?: http://www.anthroblogs.org/anthroblogblog/archives/2008/03/anthropology_jo.html 5/9/2008 7:01:14 PM
Last update: 27-06-2009 12:12
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