Like Conrad's Marlow, whose tale of journeying into the "heart of
darkness" gives us as much insight into one man's personality as it
does into the mysteries of the dark world he explored, so the
anthropologist's record of another culture contains more than
objective, scientific data about his investigation. Embedded within
it are clues to the "personality" of anthropology itself: the
attitudes, approaches, even prejudices that at any given stage in
history are inextricable from the ideology of the anthropologist.
Therefore, the mirror he holds up to show us another culture can
never be a perfect one. His own professional attitude toward his
subject, as well as his choice of medium, are factors that create
"cracks" in the mirror of anthropology through which we believe we
view the life of other cultures. Hence, the concept of
"reflexivity" and the striving to recognize how it warps in the
portrayal of anthropological truth lie at the core of the twelve
finely wrought essays collected in this volume. Wide ranging in
geography as well as viewpoint, they highlight various methods and
media (film, ethnography, text) through which an anthropologist
chooses to portray a culture, and the various forms, such as art,
theater, and ritual, through which a culture portrays itself.
Recognizing the link between these two processes provides the key
to cultural and methodological self awareness. Reflexivity is
defined and clarified in the introduction and in three of the
essays, and the remaining nine essays evince the principle through
fieldwork and startling case studies. Essays by Jay Ruby and Eric
Michaels shed new light on the enormous potential of film and
video, showing how a form generally thought to be "nonscientific"
can in fact give fresh insight into the scientific premises
underlying the discipline's methodology. Essays by Barbara Babcock
and Carol Ann Parssinen focus on the novel and ethnography,
examining existing works. Anthropologists, as well as students of
film, art, and theater, will find that this intriguing work begins
to redefine traditional distinctions between science and the arts
and brings to light fresh resources that are utilized in the search
for anthropological truth. Contributors: Richard Schechner, Victor
Turner, Barbara Myerhoff, Jay Ruby, Eric Michaels, Dennis Tedlock,
George Marcus, Paul Rabinow, Barbara Babcock, Carol Ann Parssinen,
and Dan Rose.
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