Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork

H I S T 0 R Y 0 1' .\ N T II R 0 P 0 L 0 C Y • \ 0 L l- \I F 1 OBSERVERS OBSERVED Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork UB Wien FB Kultur- u.Soz.Anthropologie Feldforschung 133 1111111~ 111~11~111 ijlll!lllljllll lllll]lll!llll ~Ill !1111!1111111 Edited by George W Stocking, Jr. Anthropology Observers Observed Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork Edited by George Stocking, Jr. "This volume focuses on ethnographic fieldwork, a keystone of cultural anthro pology that is at once a unique means of collecting data (participant observation is often spoken of as an 'anthropological' method) and a crucial rite of passage that transforms novices into professionals .... The collection as a whole is of high quality, presenting valuable information and provocative analyses. For an anthro pologist, the essays by historians offer fresh perspectives that differentiate this book from others on fieldwork."-May Ebihara, American Scientist "Observers Observed will be interesting reading for newer fieldworkers who want to compare their experiences with those of some of the masters. It will also be use ful in universities for courses in both the history of anthropology and anthropol ogy research methods. Outside anthropology, especially in sociology, it can be read with benefit by those curious about how anthropologists come by their global perspective."-Paul A. Erickson, International Journal of Comparative Sociology "Overall the essays represent a unique and much-needed kind of scholarship which has joint appeal to both anthropologists and historians." -Aram Yengoyan, Comparative Studies in Society and History Other titles in the series HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr. Volume 2, Functionalism Historicized Essays on British S.ocial Anthropology Volume 3, Objects and Others Essays on Museums and Material Culture Volume 4, Malinowski, Rivers, Benedict and Others Essays on Culture and Personality Volume 5, Bones, Bodies, Behavior Essays on Biological Anthropology Volume 6, Romantic Motives Essays on Anthropological Sensibility Volume 7, Colonial Situations Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge The University of Wisconsin Press 114 North Murray Street i sl•N 10-12991-109141514-5 9 o o o O> Madison, Wisconsin 53715 11 9 780299 094546 Observers Observed HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY EDITOR George W. Stocking, Jr. Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago EDITORIAL BOARD Talal Asad Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, University of Hull James Boon Department of Anthropology, Cornell University James Clifford Board of Studies in the History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz Donna Haraway Board of Studies in the History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz Curtis Hinsley Department of History, Colgate University Dell Hymes Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania Henrika Kuklick Department of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania Bruce Trigger Department of Anthropology, McGill University Observers Observed ESSAYS ON ETHNOORAPHIC FIELDWORK Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr. HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY Volume 1 .... ··~-" \ ._ .......... "·" --·-·" • 1 ,. ·. ~nd~~ l .... __....... \ / 1;1 r~. !. '; 1:- j" . ! ~: ~--~ ..- .. THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PRESS The University of Wisconsin Press 114 North Murray Street Madison, Wisconsin 53715 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright© 1983 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Observers observed. (History of anthropology; v. I) Includes bibliographies and index 1. Ethnology-Field work-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Participant observation-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Ethnology-History-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Stocking, George W., 1928- . II. Series. GN346.027 1983 306'.0723 83-47771 ISBN 0-299-09450-2 ISBN 0-299-09454-5 (pbk.) Contents HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY: WHENCE/WHITHER 3 "THE VALUE OF A PERSON LIEs IN His HERZENSBILDUNG": FRANZ BoAs' BAFFIN ISLAND LETTER-DIARY, 1883-1884 Douglas Cole 13 ETHNOGRAPHIC CHARISMA AND ScIENTIFIC ROUTINE: CUSHING AND FEWKES IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST, 1879-1893 Curtis Hinsley 53 THE ETHNOGRAPHER's MAGIC: FIELDWORK IN BRITISH ANTHROPOLOGY FROM TYLOR TO MALINOWSKI George W. Stocking, Jr. 70 POWER AND DIALOGUE IN ETHNOGRAPHY: MARCEL GRIAULE's INITIATION James Clifford 121 LEARNING ABOUT CULTURE: RECONSTRUCTION, PARTICIPATION, ADMINISTRATION, 1934-1954 Homer G. Barnett 157 FOLLOWING DEACON: THE PROBLEM OF ETHNOGRAPHIC REANALYSIS, 1926-1981 Joan Larcom 175 vi CONTENTS "FACTS ARE A WoRD OF Goo": AN EssAY REVIEW Paul Rabinow 196 MISCELLANEOUS STUDIES THE DAINTY AND THE HUNGRY MAN: LITERATURE AND ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE WoRK OF EDWARD SAPIR Richard Handler 208 INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS 233 INDEX 235 Observers Observed HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY Whence/Whither At a time when bookshelves bulge with journals ever-more-costly and ever less-often read, the launching of a new volume-series demands a brief self explaining introduction. What is the audience whose unserved needs we ad dress? What is the subject of our discourse? How do we intend to pursue it? And why do we begin with a particular aspect of it? Although there has been occasional interest in the history of anthropology throughout the century since the emergence of the modern academic disci pline, a more systematic concern may be traced to the Conference on the History of Anthropology stimulated by A. I. Hallowell and sponsored by the Social Science Research Council in 1962 (cf. Hymes 1962). Two decades later, what was once for the most part the episodic effort of reminiscent elder anthropologists or roving intellectual historians has become something ap proximating a recognized research specialization. The History of Anthropology: A Research Bibliography includes 2,439 titles culled from over 5,000 collected by its editors (Kemper & Phinney 1977), and for the past decade each bian nual issue of the History of Anthropology Newsletter has recorded a substantial number of articles, doctoral dissertations, and books by scholars who think of themselves as historians of anthropology (Stocking, ed. 1973-). The impetus for this development has come from both history and an thropology. Historians have no doubt been impelled in part by the inherent expansionism of a profession whose rapidly multiplying apprentices must find still unplowed fields for their research. But historical interest is also moti vated by more general professional and social concerns centering on issues of knowledge and power. The long-run trend towards the professionalization of intellectual life within academic disciplines often lately pervaded by a sense of crisis has made these disciplines themselves seem historically problematic; issues of racial and ethnic relations in the decolonizing world have turned historians' attention to the ideology of race and culture (cf. Hinsley 1981). Although doubtless variously motivated, the heightened retrospective in terest of anthropologists reflects the special sense of disciplinary crisis that 4 HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY has developed since about 1960. With the withdrawal of the umbrella of European power that long protected their entry into the colonial field, an thropologists found it increasingly difficult to gain access to (as well as ethi cally more problematic to study) the non-European "oth~rs" who had tradi tionally excited the anthropological imagination-and who seemed finally about to realize, through cultural change, the long-trumpeted anthropologi cal prediction of the "vanishing primitive." Some envisioned "the end of anthropology" along with its traditional subject matter (cf. Worsley 1970). Some wondered whether anthropology was a reversible and universal form of knowledge or merely the way Europeans had explained to themselves the "others" encountered during the centuries-long period of European overseas expansion (Stocking 1982b:419). Still others proposed the "reinvention" of the discipline. Calling into question its institutionalization within the acad emy, turning for the first time in its history toward Marxist and feminist theory, they advocated a more "reflexive" study of social groups within Euro American societies, and an active political involvement on behalf of its sub jects (Hymes, ed. 1973). Whether it is being reinvented, or simply being carried along by institutional inertia, anthropology in the early 1980s contin ues to face profound issues of disciplinary identity (Hoebel, ed. 1982). The development of self-study by post-colonial "native anthropologists" raises new ethical and methodological problems; reflexive study in the metropolis con tributes to the centrifugal proliferation of "adjectival anthropologies" without providing a unifying substantive focus; epistemological and ethical doubts have weakened methodological resolution without yet resolving the problem atic character of fieldwork method; the questioning of old concepts and the legitimation of new theoretical alternatives has not established the basis for a new integrative orientation; and despite a growing concern with increasing non-academic employment options for its surplus doctorates, the discipline remains essentially an academic one. In this context, some anthropologists have become increasingly conscious of the historical character of their discipline. Not only are the problems and the data

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