1. The crisis of representation brought around major shifts in how ethnographers textualized their research. Modern ethnography is reflexive, based on the ethnographers own subjective experience, far removed from the positivist approach of the past. In this class, we have been exposed mostly to work done after this theoretical upheaval. As students, how does reflexivity affect how we relate to ethnographic work? In comparison to the the few examples of older ethnographies we have read, in what ways are these modern works more and/or less easy to understand and learn from? How might other groups of people potentially interested in this work, such as hobbyists and ethnomusicologists, be affected by reading these newer works?
2. The ethnographer's relationship with the people who are his or her subjects is both highly essential and complex. Titon describes forming friendships with subjects as both a goal and a consequent of fieldwork in his "friendship model" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 37-40). On the other hand, Wong asserts that "the ethnographer is always an outsider" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 82). And Shelemay becomes somehow both an outsider and more of an insider than her subjects when she is asked by them to mediate tradition to the community she studies itself in the role of "expert" (in Barz and Cooley 2008: 151). How is it possible for the ethnographer to assume these many roles at once? How can these roles be seen as beneficial, harmful, or incidental to the processes of fieldwork and ethnography?
With regards to your second challenge question, I'd say that, unless the
ReplyDeleteethnographer is doing a self-ethnography, the ethnographer is always an
outsider. One of the very first things we discussed in this class was the
advantage that the ethnomusicologist has over the anthropologist --
ethnomusicologists can perform with the musicians they are studying and
can obtain a type of insider's view that anthropologists might not be able to.
However, there are still other types of cultural barriers that hold the
researcher back.
Let's start with the notion of fieldwork. The researcher goes into the field
and meets with people of a foreign culture. There is potentially a language
barrier, if the researcher cannot speak the native language well, or if there
is not a member of the group who can speak English. There is also, potentially, a wealth barrier. Additionally the members of the group being studied may have developed opinions about people of the researcher's country that may color their opinion of the researcher. What would a poor resident of some African tribe think about a scholar from the United States coming to study his ways of life? Does he think of the researcher as another member of his community or as some stranger from a land far away coming to study his culture, who, at the end of the day, won't stick around but will return to his or her own home where he or she belongs?
I'll admit, this issue gets fuzzier the closer the two cultures. Consider,
for example, themes in the first chapter of Kiri's book. Sacred Harp singing
festivals attract diversity, with participants singing with other people with
whom they may not otherwise get along. This implies a type of culture in which a mastery of the songs, and singing customs is required in order to become an insider. And yet this is not necessarily the case. The interview on page 30 gives some indication of this, at least from the perspective of singer:
Singer: See, I've got a real prejudice for unfettered Southern singings. My
goal in life is if I go South to be either the only foreigner there
or one of so few foreigners that it doesn't muck up the sound.
KM: What do you mean when you talk about "foreigners mucking up
the sound"?
Singer: Exactly that. It's not a question of sticking out in terms of decibel.
Have you ever been in a foreign country and way across the room
you heard somebody speaking English?
In this quote the singer undoubtedly feels like an outsider, despite that she
most likely does not stick out otherwise. This of course leads some outsiders to try and adopt Southern accents while singing the hymns but of course, this also makes them stand out.
And these are just singers we are talking about, nevermind students. How about the quote on page 26 from the singer to the student:
"You should not be writing a paper about Sacred Harp if you have just been
introduced to the world of Sacred Harp... You should attend conventions &
related occasions for about 20 years, & then remember ... that you are still
writing on a subject that you know all too little about, except as a guest to
it."
While Kiri mentions that this tone is atypical of singers she has encountered, she says that the basic concern the quoted singer expresses is not.
No, I think Wong is right. The ethnographer is always an outsider.
Bill, I think your response is very effective for cases in which the ethnographer is doing fieldwork away from home. Many of your points supporting the idea of the ethnographer as an outsider are issues that became troublesome to researchers during Titon's third "classical ethnomusicology" paradigm. The kind of fieldwork that you consider is rife with postcolonial issues: language, wealth, and power gaps.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, in the days when fieldwork very much resembled your description of going to a foreign land, the ethnographer was almost by definition an outsider. However, it was the very problematic nature of this kind of ethnographic work that led to widespread changes in ethnographic practice. Titon's "new fieldwork" emphasizes doing fieldwork on one's own music culture.
Even as you mention Kiri's work as an example of an ethnographer studying a culture much closer to home, there are still reasons that she may be considered an outsider in that culture simply by virtue of not being born to a Southern singing family. However, if one considers an ethnographer who was a performer in the music culture that he or she studies first, the situation changes. Is that person thrust into the role of outsider simply by virtue of taking on the additional role of ethnographer? Wong herself is somewhat in this position. She is a fully invested performer in Taiko, but cannot help but feel like an outsider.
I think when you separate "self-ethnography" from other kinds of ethnography, it makes it difficult to consider the ethnographic process. Surely, one is more of an insider when doing research on one's own culture than on a foreign culture. But is there something universal about the ethnographic process itself that puts the researcher into the role of an outsider? I think this is what Wong struggled with, but I wonder if her experience is a universal one.
I would have to agree about "self-ethnography", however I believe that this opens up another can of worms. Should self-ethnographies read like an ethnography of an outside culture, or should they reflect the researcher's experiences? Is a self-ethnography more reliable than one that it is not on the grounds that the researcher is more acquainted with the music-culture being studied, or is it less reliable, as the researcher may have developed certain biases about the music-culture? And even if the researcher has developed these biases, would they be a negative influence in an ethnography anyway, or would they serve to make it more authentic?
ReplyDeleteIn any case, when performing a self-ethnography, I wonder if the ethnographer should take the perspective of an outsider anyway. If I were to write an ethnography about a musical community I take part in, I would probably write from the perspective of an outsider, since, ultimately, I think an ethnography is primarily intended for outsiders (though even this, as we have seen in class, is a controversial viewpoint -- my first instinct is that a member of a music-culture would have no interest in reading an ethnography of his or her own culture except to (1) make sure that it is factually correct, and/or (2) get a sense of what the culture looks like from an outside point of view). So in a sense, I think that there is "something universal about the ethnographic process itself that puts the researcher into the role of an outsider". But we should always exercise caution when claiming something is universal, anyway.
I enjoyed reading your well-argumented exchange.The emic-etic issue is definitely a complex one and needs to be discussed although I would argue that it is increasingly less relevant to distinguish outsiders and insiders. Furthermore, isn't any ethnography at least partially a "self-ethnography"? Doing ethnography is such a personal activity that it is impossible, at least in my opinion, to claim any objectivity to it. What makes one's ethnography "scholarly" is one's well-informed knowledge and engagement with theoretical ideas that connect to one's research project.
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