Autobiography, Intimacy and Ethnography
28 Autobiography, Intimacy and Ethnography DEBORAH REED-DANAHA Y Ethnographers have long displayed themselves and Lavie ct aI., 1993). A more general trend toward others as individuals through photol:,rraphs, bio 'retlexivity' in ethnographic writing (Cole, 1992), graphy, life history and autobiography. While dis influenced by both postmodemism and feminism, closure of intimate details of the lives of those also informs the increasing emphasis on self typically under the ethnographic gaze (the infor disclosure and self-display. Anthropologists and mants) has long been an acceptable and expected sociologists are becoming more explicit in their aspect of ethnographic research and writing, self exploration of the links between their own auto disclosure among ethnographers themselves has biographies and their ethnographic practices (Ellis been less acceptable and much less common. As and Bochner, 1996; Okely and Callaway, 1992). At Ruth Behar (1996: 26) has written, 'In anthro the same time, the 'natives' are increasingly telling pology, which historically exists to "give voice" to their own stories and have become ethnographers of others, there is no greater taboo than self-revelation'. their own cultures (Jones, 1970; Ohnuki-Tierney, Writing about the private lives of both ethno 1984). Researchers as well as their informants! graphcrs and their infornlants has been subject to collaborators have become aware of the politics of debates about the humanistic versus scientific valid representation and ofthe power relations inherent in ity of a focus on individuals. In recent decades, ethnographic accounts (Archetti, 1994; Behar and three prominent genres of writing have influenced Gordon, 1995; Cliftord, 1983; Fox, 1991; Harrison, thinking about the relationship between ethno 1997; Hymes, 1974; Marcus and Fischer, 19X6; graphy and the self of both the ethnographer and the Moore, 1994; Okely and Callaway, 1992; Strathern, 'native' informant: 1987).
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