The Writer as Anthropologist: Teaching Ethnography Through Literature

Ilina Jakimovska
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Abstract

Literature and ethnographic writing have at least one thing in common - they are both about ‘putting things to paper’. As observed by Clifford Geertz in his Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author (Geertz, 1988), the concern with how ethnographic texts are constructed has for a long time been considered irrelevant, even ‘unanthropological’. As a consequence, important aspects concerning the style, imagery and metaphor of great anthropological works have not been included in the standard teaching curricula.  This paper tries to see things from a reverse Geertz perspective: how can contemporary prose be used to expand ethnographic knowledge, as well as refresh the sometimes stale scientific discourse. The few chosen examples serve as illustrations of the great potential of fiction storytelling to challenge dominant modes of ethnographic writing, and to teach anthropological concepts and ideas.
作为人类学家的作家:通过文学教授民族志
文学和民族志写作至少有一个共同点——它们都是关于“把东西写在纸上”。正如克利福德·格尔茨(Clifford Geertz)在《作品与生活:作为作者的人类学家》(Geertz, 1988)中所观察到的那样,长期以来,对民族志文本如何构建的关注一直被认为是无关紧要的,甚至是“非人类学的”。其结果是,有关风格、意象和隐喻等重要方面的人类学名著没有被纳入标准的教学课程。本文试图从格尔茨的反向视角看问题:当代散文如何能够拓展民族志知识,并使有时陈腐的科学话语得到更新。这几个被选中的例子说明了小说叙事的巨大潜力,挑战了民族志写作的主导模式,并传授了人类学的概念和思想。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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