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ABJECTION AND ITS CORRECTION IN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES: COMMUNICATION ISSUES IN THE CULTURAL TOURISM OF ISLA MUJERES, MEXICO

DISSERTAHON

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in

the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Jill Adair McCaughan, B.A., M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University 1999

Dissertation Committee:

Professor Joseph J. Pilotta, Adviser Approved by

Professor Rohan Samarajiva

Professor Patrick Mullen

Professor John W. Roberts Graduate Proafam in /Communication UMI Number: 9941382

Copyright 1999 by McCaughan, Jill Adair

All rights reserved.

UMI Microform 9941382 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.

This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 copyright by Jill Adair McCaughan 1999 ABSTRACT

This work is an interdisciplinary intervention into ethnographic

research which addresses two levels. The first of these is methodological,

concerning the manner in which social science is conducted. The second is

practical, attempting to illustrate how the methodological issues uncovered

by the application of phenomenologically-based abject communication theory

can be circumnavigated by a program of reflexive involvement in a

community through social action research. Based on methodological issues,

the case study location was Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, México, an small island located off the Yucatan coast of Mexico, eight miles northeast of

Cancun.

Because of its close proximity to one of the world^s most quickly

"developing" tourist resort areas, this "less developed" (yet much more historically situated) island community has provided an excellent location for ethnographic research into the relationship between the international tourism industry and changes as they are experienced in the daily lives of indigenous people and settlers from other parts of Mexico. The study focuses

11 specifically on. the on-going creation of the identity of the island as a home and as a site of tourism, as communicated through promotional texts and through personal interaction between tourists and islanders. The project takes into account the ways in which the presence of the researcher and the goals and methods of the research both mediate and participate in the modification of the tourism-based economy as well as the social müieu of the research communities. It also interrogates stylistic issues involved in the writing and presentation of ethnographic knowledge.

Communication researchers, folklorists, and anthropologists have begun to vigorously challenge the validity of past forms of collecting and presenting knowledge gained through ethnographic research. While the greater portion of these critiques have focused on the textual practices associated with ethnography, a focus on abject communication contributes to these disciplines a coherent means of conceptualizing the power relationships that motivate those problems. It also affords a greater understanding of how the praxis of conducting ethnographic research can be modified in ways such as to augment the validity of ethnographic conclusions while benefiting all of the parties involved in the research.

I l l This Book is for the People of Isla Mujeres

IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One extremely important conclusion which has resulted from this

study is the concrete reality that social scientific research is necessarily a social

process. Despite the appearance fostered by a title page which lists only one

name as "the author," I am certain that this dissertation could not have been

possible without the support and interest of a whole host of people. The

number of people who participated in this project from its inception to its

completion is too numerous to list fully, and I apologize for any omissions.

However, I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and

admiration to a number of key participants and supporters, including family,

mentors, friends, and colabor adores.

I'd like to thank my my grandmother Frances Olshefski Souder

Blackner; my mother Joyce McCaughan Moore; my father James S.

McCaughan, Jr.; my step-mother Lorie L. McCaughan; and all of my siblings for their support throughout this long process. I'd like to thank Jonathan specifically for being an excellent travelling companion.

Special thanks go to my adviser, Joe Pilotta, who provided the conditions for the possibility of following my bUss. The members of my dissertation committee, Rohan Samarajiva, Patrick Mullen, and John

Roberts, have provided me with years worth of wisdom, guidance, and

support as well. I couldn't be more proud to count them among my mentors.

For a long time, Alex Munroe, Amy Gohdes Luhman, Maureen

McDermott, Bob Kovalchick, and Jeremy M. Downes, have given me their

friendship and love. Thanks guys.

Scott Morris, Madeleine Marcano, Asim Karaomerlioglu, Rich

Dicenzo, Farshad Lanjani, Victor Van Buchem, LiUa Perez ChavoUa, Kathryn

L. Kelley, Nikki Bado, Phillip Hinz, and Mark Wynn have been invaluable— providing comradship, as well as theoretical and technical expertise. I wouldn't be writing this right now if it hadn't been for all your help.

While I'd like to thank all of the tourists who have been involved in this project, especially helpful and friendly have been Harry, Jennifer

Meacher, Dogan Tirtiroglu, Ron Smith, Ron Burian, Rob Lindeman, William

G. Colvin, and Carlos E. Gonzales.

Of great importance is the debt of gratitude that I feel towards aU those islenos who have labored with me on this project. Among them, I want to thank all mis amigos at Rolandi's, including Luis Alberto Tenorio, Gerardo

Burgueno, Gabriel Cawich, Gabriel Interian, Roman, Gilberto, Enrique,

Amulfo, Alvaro Tranquilino, Jose Arturo, and Carlos Cervera Foster. My friends at Chi Chi's and Charlie's Bar also deserve a big thank you, including

Charlie, Jesus Silva Cel, and Omar Medina Pech. Thanks also go out to

VI Tomas "Pantera" Cubells Millan, Fide, Carlos Alberto Tapia Becerra and

Jenny Islaver Lopez de Tapia, Jorge and Marlene Frias and their children,

Tarzan, Angel, Wilfredo and Vincente Ortiz, Victor Mis Velazquez, Sergio,

Olga and Bruja, Juanito, Victor, Brigette and Mario, and Ubelina and Miguel

Sanchez Azueta. You have all taught me so much.

I also wish to acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Antonio Salas Torres,

Gilberto Pastrana Novelo, Doha Lupita of Casa Rocateliz, Mark of Mundaca

Travel, Antonio Palma Suarez, Carlos During, Soled, C. Fidel Vdlanueva

Madrid, and the women at the Archiva MimfczpaZ,including Marina Avila and Leticia Rodriguez Medina. Td also like to extend my appreciation to Luis

Gomez Cardenas and Oscar Campero for permission to reproduce their postcards.

Finally, thanks also go to the musicians who have filled the island nights with song and laughter, Rigoberto and José Delgado Castillo of Mez

Me, Elfego and Alvaro Hernandez Ramos, Rafael Roman Juarez, Victor and

Saul, Cuco Fernandez, and especially Miguel Rojas Perez.

Muchisimas Gracias a Todosl

vu VTTA

29 M ay 1968 Bom - Colum bus, Ohio

1989 B.A. English Literature and History: The University of Wisconsin M adison

1992 M.A. English Literature: The University of Wisconsin - Madison

1992-1995 Adjunct Instructor, Columbus State Community College, Departments of English and Modem Languages

1995-1998 Graduate Teaching Associate and Administrative Assistant to the Chair of Graduate Studies, The Ohio State University, School of Journalism and Communication

PUBLICAHONS

Kaminski, J.P., and J.A. McCaughan. A Great and Good Man: George Washington in the Eyes of His Contemporaries. M adison: M adison H ouse, 1989.

FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Graduate Program in Communication

Specializations: Critical Cultural Studies and the Philosophy of Communication

viu TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

V ita...... viii

List of Figures ...... x

Chapters:

1. Introduction ...... 1

2. Abject Communication: Ethnographie Practices in ...... 15 Communication, Folklore, and Sociolinguistics

2.1 Introduction ...... 15 2.2 Definition and Application of Abject ...... 21 Communication Theory 2.3 A Response to Perform ance Theory ...... 51 2.4 A Response to the Application of the Inductive ...... 62 Logic of Statistical Analysis to Qualitative Research

3. Phenomenology in the Field ...... 75

3.1 Introduction: A Phenomenological Framework for ...... 75 Fieldwork as Method 3.2 Rehabilitation Strategies in Method ...... 99

4. A Perspective on Political Economy as It Relates to ...... 120 Ethnographic Studies of Tourism in "Developing" Nations

IX 4.1 Introduction ...... 120 4.2 Blending Political Economy with Ethnography ...... 125 4.3 The Value of Political Economy to Ethnography ...... 134 4.4 Further Contributions of Political Economy to Ethnography....144 4.5 Phenomenological Contributions to Political Economy ...... 153 4.6 Conclusion ...... 159

5. Fleshtones of the the Situation ...... 161

5.1 Introduction ...... 161 5.2 The Situation ...... 163 5.3 History ...... 180 5.4 Tourism ...... 184 5.5 Some Context on My Presence ...... 189 5.6 El Présidente ...... 199

6. Postcard Promiscuity ...... 219

6.1 Introduction ...... 219 6.2 "Greetings from Isla Mujeres" ...... 221 6.3 Post-A-Pom ...... 234 6.4 Mixtures...... 240 6.5 Casuality...... 244

7. T-Shirt Tales: The Body as Billboard ...... 248

7.1 Historical Materialism ...... 248 7.2 Generali-Ts ...... 252 7.3 Specifici-Ts ...... 264 7.4 Isla-Ts...... 270 7.5 Cultural Capitalism ...... 280

8. Conclusion ...... 286

Bibliography ...... 296

Glossary of Mayan and Spanish Terms ...... 309 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1.1 Map of the Yucatan Peninsula ...... 2

1.2 Map of Isla Mujeres ...... 3

1.3 Map of Downtown Isla M ujeres ...... 4

3.1 Easter Passion Play in Isla Mujeres ...... 108

3.2 Mayan Statue Removed from the Island in 1876 ...... 118

5.1 Temple to Ixchel (with Pantera in the foreground) ...... 164

5.2 The Gardens of Hacienda Mundaca ...... 183

5.3 Hotel El Présidente ...... 200

6.1 Postcard: "Greetings from Isla Mujeres, Mexico" ...... 222

6.2 An Amateur Aerial Photograph of Isla Mujeres ...... 226

6.3 Postcard: "Beach Bum s" ...... 235

6.4 Postcard: "Hello from Isla Mujeres" ...... 239

7.1 T-Shirt: "Same Shit, Different Island" ...... 268

7.2 T-Shirt: "Love that Shark" ...... 274

7.3 T-Shirt: "Mayan Culture" ...... 278

XI 7.4 T-Shirt Design: Mayan Statue from Isla Mujeres ...... 283

8.1 A Southern View from El Présidente ...... 296

Xll CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This work is an interdisciplinary intervention into ethnographic

research addressing two levels. The first of these is methodological, concerning the manner in which social science is conducted. The second is practical, attempting to illustrate how the methodological issues uncovered in the first portion can be circumnavigated by a program of reflexive involvement in the communities established in a case study site. Based on methodological issues, the site I chose for the case study was Isla Mujeres,

Quintana Roo, an small island located off the Caribbean coast of México, eight miles northeast of Cancun (see figure 1.1 for a map of the Yucatan Peninsula, figure 1.2 for a map of the island, and figure 1.3 for a map of the town at the northern tip of the island). Because of its close proximity to one of the world's most quickly "developing" tourist resort areas, this "less developed" (yet much more historically situated) island community has provided an excellent location for ethnographic research into the relationship between the international tourism industry and changes as they are experienced in the .Boca di Conft CHIKINCHEL Chauaca .Isfa d t V, L Han •Loche • M ujeres ^bain- ozldzantun Conkal &TkC0h]. Buctzots [Zlsha] (Sin •«•T-ho'>eis4Z AH KIN CHEL PECH Izam al [T-pop] A C hancenote . AHocaba % " TA2E5 [Peba] H0 CA8A-H0 MUN c, AHomun AzLi-Chema'x JS.OTUTA VI543M4.IS46 C P'^m axl Chi Chenlan «llza .lIzA Cob& j^-y.Cofumel 5 # CalKinia Chumayd. .^.Otimai *^t533M534 ;••■' W and Xelh Tlilum Alchmul Ctama) ïlfSS."’*' Ubni -T«a« • Peto COCHUAH CANPECH Caiotmu! tojnoeche } ^yJSoAfo

□scalar NORTH ^Mazatlan] Late umal. MAZATLAM SSA o r hctum al CEHACHE fAcalar9 JLCalakmuI

Figure 1.1: Map of the Yucatan Peninsula Cait&èuM

A f. .B<

^Ihidtwoin <£(uu SUatua J* ùi C^yw* ^ /c & ^ 4M Pkw.../^.au, / À#w* û%ou 't p '•s w ^uorMUf '' \ V

Figure 1.2: Map of Isla Mujeres ^ '“Sis Pi.AY.\ rio,ii. B-o.i. ' a

lA/W - |- i , \ f

=?< LOPEZ IvlArCOS

VIATA.VIOCOS

' a b ^v s o l o FUEL cca.

VIAPIE

E-\tCOS/EC AfS PLAYAll>CA LCC-^rCV ■-1 MADI-RO »»■■><

iimmi Vtcnum«nlc T o u risf Pcc. MffnonJez J* CcrrJcva* n fo rm afio n ZCCALO Apr:: #e, ^ ^ IP .V 'iE C l.C A L C L A -LaP.ft3“ CAL f e l l y rc Iiinniii ICC LAS BRAVO *" P^sliumnJ PLMAWM : ^ ■

AlLEnCE

rc ditipln GALL.-\FCY1 AIIC'-'M \klt W PALE: CrlfC^. y I SI f%3mt /\U»AfCtiLMir f / f *•*•!

Figurel.3: Map of Downtown Isla Mujeres daily lives of indigenous people and settlers from other parts of Mexico. The study focuses specifically on the on-going creation of the identity of the island as a home and as a site of tourism, as communicated through promotional texts and through personal interaction between turistas (tourists) and islenos (islanders). (A glossary of Mayan and Spanish terms as used in this text is located in the back matter.) The project takes into account the ways in which the presence of the researcher and the goals and methods of the research both mediate’ and participate in the modification of the tourism- based economy as well as the social milieu of the research communities. It also interrogates stylistic issues involved in the writing and presentation of ethnographic knowledge.

Research Problematic:

Can we come to social science knowledge in a manner which is less abject than past methods? (See chapter 2 for a thorough discussion of abjection as it applies to social scientific research.) What are the limits of such an approach? What does research look like when it is conducted in such a manner, specifically in the case study location of Isla Mujeres? What possibilities arise when communities come to view a social science researcher as a viable means for achieving their own social and economic objectives? General Methodological Goals:

1. To explore the problematic nature of ethnographic research in regard

to power differentials experienced by ethnographers and researched

communities.

2. To illustrate how these differentials can be mitigated through

innovative combinations in the study's theoretical foundations, data-

gathering, analysis, and publication techniques.

Site-Specific Goals:

1. To come to an understanding of the cultural, social, and economic relationships between tourism and the islemd community—both as a whole, and as a constellation of various communities (See chapters 4 and 5.)

2. To provide information, service, and opportunities to community members which will lead to the amelioration of the collective island situation. (See chapters 6, 7, and 8.)

Methods of Data-Collection and Analysis

Due to my focus on a topic which involves cultural and social aspects imbricated with issues of economic development, multiple methods of data- collection and analysis have been required. A wide sample of items related to economic development, such as brochures, tourist guidebooks, magazines,

Internet web sites, T-shirts, and postcards, have been collected and have required textual analysis in the form of hermeneutics and semiology superimposed upon a backdrop of folklore and political economic theory.

While much of the textual analysis has been performed off-site, on-site analysis of materials was also required as a means of providing additional insights into the ways in which both tourists and islanders respond to and interpret these texts. In addition, further on-site dialogues with the producers of such texts has led me to a greater understanding of the motivations and future expectations of the island and its various communities in regard to tourism and economic development. After Morris (1999) I use the term

"community" to refer to any group of people who define themselves as such.

These dialogues have proven invaluable to a consideration of the economic bases of production which subtend touristic texts.

The importance of the social interaction between visitors to the island and the residential community as a whole has also necessitated the on-site data-gathering methods of participant observation and interviewing. 1 have conducted interviews with tourists and islanders in many different settings: offices, sidewalks, hotels, cafes, bars, and beaches. While interviews have provided information and more importantly contact with the communities, participant observation has furnished opportunities for checking the social validity of the interview data and acquiring a more insightful understanding of the local situation. Living among the greater community has also provided a coherent understanding of that which is possible in this particular setting. While it may be possible to study the experience of individual tourists over a short period of time, their visits usually lasting only one or two weeks, the islanders' experiences of their home are much more complex, and coming to an understanding of this requires longer periods of interaction between the researcher and these community members. The length of the fieldwork process, spanning two years, has contributed to this understanding. I have seen the island in all seasons: llena y vacia (full and empty). I have watched with my friends the tourist ebb and flow, and with that, we have watched the ebb and flow of pesos in their wallets.

Data-gathering and analysis techniques have been greatly influenced by the availability of new communication technologies. I have utilized Internet communication tools, such as e-mail, to keep in contact with tourists from all over the world; the opening of an internet access site, Compu-Isla, has made that form of communication more possible with some isleiios, too. Also, the advances made in video-recording technology have been of great importance to my research. Non-traditionally shaped video cameras, such as the Sharp

ViewCam, allow both the researcher and community members to monitor an interaction as it takes place on a small screen, as well as enabling them to review the footage together immediately, in full color and audio. The camera's user-friendly controls and television-style appearance also enable

8 community members to become involved in data collection, enhancing the interactional dimension of the research process. Video data also serves as a basis for the creation of products associated with community pride and economic development. It also provides a means for transmitting cultural

(ethnographic) knowledge which is not wholly dependent upon words.

Theory

The theoretical premises on which the study is based emanate hom phenomenology and hermeneutics, in the form of a critical constellation which Alphonso Lingis (1982) has termed the theory of Abject

Communication. Presented in detail, each premise is here applied to ethnography and is accompanied by a discussion of similar critiques of power which have been raised by folklorists, communication scholars, anthropologists, and linguists. Additionally, each of the seven axioms is exemplified by various excerpts from foundational texts which exhibit an orientation towards abjection. These seven axioms are:

1. Despite the fragmentary nature of all data, science presents the natural and social worlds as being comprised of coherent wholes.

2. The symbolic systems through which knowledge is transferred actually function to obscure the original insights on which those symbolic structures have been imposed. 3. The attribution of the characteristics of these symbolic structures to

real-world objects functions to obfuscate the true nature of the objects.

4. The objective style of social scientific reporting negates the inherent

differences between reality and sign systems, while erasing the singularity of

each individuaTs own experience, leading to anonymity.

5. This anonymity is symptomatic of the abdication of responsibility for

one's ethnographic utterances.

6. Expressing truth, which is situational, rather than merely

communicating, must be the primary goal of speech or expression, or in this

case, ethnography.

7. Thoughts requiring communication, whether those of the

researcher or the community, are those which present the needs and lacks of

the speaker and their expression results in a process of the speaker's becoming

weak (or abject) (Lingis 1982).

Reflections upon the usefulness of other schools of thought are then presented, including extended notes on Performance theory and inferential statistical analysis. The usefulness of melding the political economy of communication with ethnography and phenomenology is discussed in chapter 4.

10 Methodology

The justification for the centrality of tourism in this project is related to

the community social action research principles on which the study is

founded. As such, this project is concerned with coming to knowledge which

will benefit both the academic community and the communities involved in

the study. The methodological principles of community social action research

include understanding that: 1. Communities cannot and ought not to be viewed as an undistinguished cohort. 2. Researchers must understand the specific logic of how a community views itself. 3. Researchers must tap community commitments. 4. Researchers must achieve communicative competence in terms of the community and understand the meaning of the activities that lend order to its life. 5. Community sensitivity is essential. 6. Interviewing should be considered as a device that increases community contact. (Pilotta, et al., forthcoming) According to the island's former delegate of the Secretary of Tourism,

Gilberto Pastrana Novelo, tourism accounts for nearly 95% of the island's economy. Not only does the government acknowledge the centrality of tourism in painted announcements, the islanders themselves know this, and their concern shows up in holiday events such as the annual Is la Mujeres

"Miss Summer" beauty pageant. This beauty pageant, held in el zocalo (the main square) of la colonia (the residential village) is an event which is convened by islenos for themselves; it is not located in the central main square of the business-oriented town in front of el Palacio Municipal (the

11 municipal building) where more tourists would be apt to pass by and join the

audience. Like the bailes (dances) at Playa Lancheros, this party is

(unofficially) a local affair—convened weU off the beaten track of the shifting

tourist population. Although it is unusual for a giiera gabacha to attend such

functions, I felt welcomed, and a number of islanders commented on my

attendance in later conversation, asking if I were going to this or that

pachanga.

Like other beauty pageants, the Miss Summer pageant includes

swimsuit and eveningwear competitions, as well as a short interview session

with each contestant. In the 1998 pageant, four of the six finalists were asked

questions regarding the relationship between tourism and Isla Mujeres.

Cheers from the crowd indicated the people's approval of the young women's

proscriptive responses (as well as their level of popularity among the

neighbors). While this pageant, too, is a government sponsored event, it

illustrates how intricately conjoined is the prosperity of the islenos with

tourism .

Often, the current level of tourism on the island is a topic that follows

from the weather. As can be heard in the street everyday, and seen at holiday celebrations throughout the year, the great majority of people living on the island have a stake and an interest in maximizing the influx of tourist dollars in ways which will benefit them without negatively affecting the society and culture of Isla Mujeres, and they know it. Many have moved to Isla Mujeres

12 precisely for that income. As a result, many islanders have expressed interest

both in providing information for and in learning the results of this study.

From the beginning—from the choice of the research questions to be

investigated—this co-participatory aspect has been present in every stage of the

study. The concerns, ideas, and expectations of the islanders have been of

central importance. My presence has opened up possibilities for them, and

their cooperation has opened up possibilities for me. We have studied this

issue together.

The above example of the importance of tourism to the community

also serves to highlight the way in which methodology and method are

intricately imbricated in this research project. All sources, from my

interviews with government officials, to the beauty pageant which I had the pleasure of attending, to the nightly conversations on the comer...all of these interactions have worked to provide information, as well as to test the social validity of interview data. (Chapter 3 deals specifically with the importance of social validity, as well as eleven other concepts which form the phenomenological basis of the method employed in this research project.)

O utcom es

Communication researchers, folklorists, and anthropologists have begun to vigorously challenge the validity of past forms of collecting and presenting knowledge gained through ethnographic research. While the

13 greater portion of these critiques have focused on the textual practices associated with ethnography, this volume contributes to these disciplines a coherent means of conceptualizing the power relationships that motivate those problems. It also affords a greater understanding of how the praxis of conducting ethnographic research can be modified in ways such as to augment the validity of ethnographic conclusions while benefiting all of the parties involved in the research.

Outcomes associated with the practical issues of the economic development of the island, and that of the state of Quintana Roo, are more fully discussed in chapters 6, 7, and 8. These include promotional video messages and internet web sites which will more fully convey the cultural richness of the area, alongside the natural beauty for which this part of the world has become famous. Community-centered projects associated with the development of culturally specific souvenirs are also underway. Finally, texts celebrating the historical and cultural importance of the region are being developed for a number of audiences, including local communities. In keeping with the original spirit of the project, the empowerment of local communities is the foremost objective in the continuing work.

14 CHAPTER 2

ABJECT COMMUNICATION: ETHNOGRAPHIC PRACTICES IN

COMMUNICAHON, FOLKLORE, AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS

...I have knozvn the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix yon in a formulated phrase. And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin. When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall. Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? A nd hozv should I presume? —T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Introduction

In these well-known lines from T.S. Eliot's poem, Prufrock expresses what one could call an attitude of abjection—servility, weakness, wretchedness, or in short, powerlessness. The narrator presents himself as an insect pinned up for examination by an entomologist. Fixed and studied, its innards interrogated, the insect can do nothing but submit to the formulating gaze of science. In some respects, Prufrock's lament echoes that of the traditional ethnographer's "subject"^ who, pinned down in time and space.

^ For several reasons, I have chosen to use the term "subject" (always in quotation marks) as a means of designating the human source of the ethnographer's information throughout this

15 has been asked to describe his days and ways—to perform competently—hiding nothing and revealing all—solely that the ethnographer might write up his ethnography and expose "his subject's" inner secrets to the world.

Ethnography is a slippery term which requires qualification, partially because its history is long. In his discussion of the word, Clifford (1986) points to Heroditus and Montesquieu as practitioners of ethnography (2). However,

Fabian (1990b) indicates that the term's first use was in 1842 (p. 758 n. 9). For his part, Fabian addresses the difficulty of exactly defining ethnography- emphasizing what he calls its "free-floating character" (p. 758)—and never quite seems to define it succinctly himself. Indeed, finding an acceptable definition for the word has been difficult. Therefore, I should like to qualify the subject of this critique as not being "the primary methodology of anthropology," but rather as being particular practices in which ethnographers of various disciplines have traditionally engaged, in the later portion of the twentieth century, in their attempts at the textual "description of peoples" (Fabian, 1990b, p. 758).

chapter. First, Liie choice of an acceptable designation for this member of the interaction has been regarded as a problem for quite awhile. "Object," "informant," "native," and other terms elicit objections that are also difficult to circumvent. A second reason I've chosen to use "subject" is to underscore the abjectifying strategies which find their voice in the language of researchers. To use the preferred term of "co-participant" in the present context would function to hide the power differentials present in so much ethnographic literature. The multiple common definitions and connotations of "subject" are also important, including "servant of the king" and "topic of study." Finally, using "subject" highlights the subject/object dichotomy which phenomenology takes to be false.

16 While various practices have their origins in specific disciplines, they

have been accepted by scholars from many fields. Thus, the

anthropologically-based work of Geertz has registered a deep impact on all of

the social sciences. Similarly, particular sociolinguistic theories such as

conversation analysis have established themselves in folklore studies and

communication at radical levels. As Littlejohn (1996) notes in his widely read

introduction to communication scholarship, "conversation analysis is

perhaps the most well-developed and prominent application of discourse

analysis in the communication field" (p. 85). Because of this type of cross­

fertilization, I cannot avoid addressing other disciplines in relation to my

critique of communication theories.

Such a movement towards the critique of practices rather than that of entire schools of thought or individual researchers is supported by Geertz's statement that "If you want to understand what a science is you should look in the first instance not at its theories or its findings, and certainly not what its apologists say about it; you should look at what the practitioners of it do"

(Geertz qtd. in Van Maanen, 1988, p. 71). Thus, my examination engages the research practices of various schools of thought, many of which couch their own programs of analysis as critiques of earlier methodologies. Schiffrin

(1994) touches on a few of the differences between some sociolinguistic and communication approaches:

17 ...some approaches focus intensively on a few fragments of talk (e.g. interactional sociolinguistics), others focus on distributions of discourse items across a wide range of texts (e.g. variationists). Some require a great deal of social, cultural, and personal information about interlocutors and may use interlocutors as informants in analysis of their own talk (e.g. ethnography of communication); others assume an idealized speaker/hearer whose specific social, cultural, or personal characteristics do not enter into participant strategies for building a text at all (e.g. pragmatics), (p. 13)

Thus, the reader may be surprised upon first glance to see the work of Geertz,

Agar, and Sacks discussed in the same section of this paper. However, one should keep in mind that, despite their theoretical and disciplinary differences, the methodologies on which these groups rely are often similar, resulting in great similarities in the methods they apply.

To that end, the critique of various methodologically-based practices of ethnography is hardly novel in itself, and it has led to some of the great conflicts between the schools of thought mentioned earlier. For example,

Fabian (1990a) notes that ethnography was "reformed" in the 1950s by the imposition of rule-bound, scientific methods. The work of the conversation analysts continues in this vein of scientific reform: Within conversation analysis there is an insistence on the use of materials collected from naturally occurring occasions of everyday interaction....This policy contrasts markedly with many of the traditional methods of data collection prominent in the social sciences....it represents a departure both from the use of interviewing techniques...and from the use of experimental methodologies in which the social scientist must necessarily manipulate, direct, or otherwise intervene in the subjects' behavior. [It] also breaks with those theoretical traditions in which native intuitions, expressed as idealized

18 or invented examples, are treated as an adequate basis for making and debating analytic claims. (Atkinson and Heritage, 1984, pp. 2-3) While I am not arguing for a return to the good old days of "pre-positivized" ethnography, the present essay does critique this trend of scientization, including its attendant notion of objectivity.

On the other side of the issue, the well-known reformer of ethnography, Clifford Geertz (1973) highlighted its literary aspects, by presenting as an alternative Ryle's concept of "thick description," which he characterized as a practice of interpreting "the flow of social discourse [and]... fixing the 'said' of such discourse" in a microscopic context (pp. 18-21). While the partial success of Geertz's theoretical attempts to de-scientize ethnography should be applauded, Geertz's praxis is often questionable, consequently falling under the purview of the present critique. Agar (1996) has also noted the importance of continuing to improve ethnographic writing beyond the stages which Geertz and then Clifford reached when he says that "...the dialectic didn't just stop with Writing Culture" (p. 11).

The last two decades have witnessed a further increase in the critical engagement of ethnography by scholars of various theoretical perspectives, many of whom share a distinctly qualitative orientation with the present critique. While somewhat sarcastic in tone, Geertz (1988) concisely catalogues some of their products: ...deconstructive attacks on canonical works, and on the very idea of canonicity as such, Ideologiekritik unmaskings of anthropological writings as the continuation of imperialism by other means; clarion

19 calls to reflexivity, dialogue, heteroglossia, linguistic play, rhetorical self-consciousness, performative translation, verbatim recording, and first-person narrative....(p. 131) As such, these critiques have made valid and valuable contributions to the

on-going discussion of the more disturbing practices of traditional ethnography. An especially important development in the last fifteen years has been the growth of a body of critique which "ask[s] another question— what systems of power hold those contexts and meanings in place" (Agar,

1996, p. 26). This concern with systems power is one reason why I advocate the application of political economy to ethnographic research, as more fully discussed in chapter 4.

To this body of ethnographic critique, this dissertation adds an evaluation of theories and practices, based in Lingis's (1982) concept of abject communication. I contend that viewing ethnography through the lens of this communication theory encapsulates in a new way many of the criticisms already advanced by various social scientists, while highlighting some new criticisms of its own. By doing so, the concept of abject communication as applied to methodological practices can lead us to new ideas about ways in which to reform ethnographic research on the levels of both theory and praxis. For the sake of clarity, I will present the seven axioms of abject communication theory individually. I will relate each axiom to ethnography by providing examples of similar objections raised by previous critics and by exemplifying each axiom with a brief discussion of how various

20 sociolinguistic, folkloric, and communication ethnographies embody abjection. Following that are extended notes on Performance theory and inferential statistics. A discussion of ways to counteract abjection in a research program is located in chapter 3. The results of that application can be found in the following chapters.

Throughout the course of this discussion, it will be important to keep in mind that in the case of traditional ethnography, methodological abjection may operate on at least two levels. The more visible of these levels is that on which so many other critiques have focussed—the difference in power between the "subject" and the ethnographer. However, abjection also characterizes the relationship between the ethnographer and the disciplines of social science itself. Just as the "subject" may be abject in the face of the dominance of the ethnographer, so the ethnographer may be abject in the face of her discipline, be it anthropology, folklore, sociology, linguistics, or communication.

Definition and Application of Abject Communication Theory

In his foundational essay on abject communication, Lingis (1982, p. 161) argues that truths actually begin to degrade and function as falsehoods when communication becomes the primary goal of speech. A word such as truth requires definition; here, truth should be taken in the Heideggarian sense, together with the term responsibility, as referring to the quality of a speech act

21 in terms of the dual themes of: 1) its ability to articulate the world as the

speaker experiences it, and 2) its presentation of the speaker as "a singularity'

(Lingis, p. 167). In the course of his argument, which is predicated on the

phenomenological and existential assumption that "truth requires a

nonrepresentational relation between one speaker and another" (p. 161),

Lingis draws upon on the theories of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger,

and Friedrich Nietzsche. While Lingis presents abject communication as a

relational process located in the discourse of the natural sciences as well as

that of ordinary language, I focus here on the ways abjection functions

specifically in the various stages involved in the production of social

scientific discourse, examining the strategies by which power differentials

become reified, keeping the abject servile and the dominant powerful.

1. Generalizing from Fragmentary Data

Lingis takes his first point from Husserl's The Crisis. He notes that,

although the natural (and I add social) sciences rely on fragmentary data— collected through isolated experimentation (or fieldwork) and fraught with inconsistencies—the data are ultimately presented as forming a unified, coherent whole (p. 162). It is this practice which Fabian (1983) criticizes in regard to the insistence of many anthropologists that "Data may be used, selected, and manipulated to verify the theories formulated in anthropological discourse in any shape and maimer the theoretician sees fit"

22 (p. 72). An added danger is that the representation of nature in such

organized, highly structured ways contests the common individual's experience of the life-world as often paradoxical and even incoherent (Lingis, p. 163).

This conflict between the experience of the life-world and the explanatory procedures of natural science is exemplified by the case of competing explanations for solar eclipses. As a phenomenon, the eclipse is confusing. The enthralled viewer must ask, "Why is this occurring?" Perhaps that viewer will adopt a mythical or magical explanation [in the sense of

Gebser's (1985) typologies] which apprehends the eclipse as a singular marker of great portent. Alternatively, the viewer may choose a scientific perspective.

Both are attempts to explain the extraordinary, the exception to the rule that the sun always shines in the daytime. Science posits this phenomenon as one related to a greater process of planetary orbits, negating any experience of the eclipse as something other than a predictable event. To science, the person who views the event as extraordinary or meaningful is merely naïve, uneducated, primitive, or irrational. And even worse, in social science, these uninitiated, "confused" individuals double as our (powerless) "subjects."

The relation of ethnography to this abject function of science is problematized by Szwed (1975) in his discussion of race and folklore. He notes that "In their efforts to demystify race, social scientists and revolutionaries have abandoned culture and grouped the stigmatized and excluded peoples of

23 many races and cultures together in a concept larger than race, one variably

called...members of the 'cultures of poverty/ or simply 'the masses' " (p. 30).

That is, in its attempt to make sense of the world, social scientists have a

tendency to present data culled from some members of a particular

dispossessed group as though they were representative of the experiences of

all members of all dispossessed groups. Roberts (1993) also comments on the

totalizing function of folklore's models and the practice of data collection when he remarks that ...we must become sensitive to and knowledgeable about the ways in which the discipline structures a discourse that renders virtually impossible a recognition of the influence of diversity not only on culturally specific creative traditions but also between diverse cultural traditions, (p. 158) Although it is clear that more folklorists are becoming aware of the dangers inherent in such totalizing models, avoiding reliance upon the concept of a coherent whole appears difficult. An example from a recent ethnography by Kapchan (1993) illustrates this conflict well. Immediately after acknowledging that "Moroccan women are tattooed for diverse reasons

(Searight 1984)," Kapchan proceeds to generalize: "but tattoos generally fall into two categories: adornment and expressions of prophylactic, supernatural belief. Women are tattooed either for beauty or to prevent or cure conditions...." (Kapchan, p. 6). The remainder of the discussion follows the binary opposition set up in the above quotation, and the reader never again hears about those other "diverse reasons."

24 A more blatant and dangerous manifestation of this axiom is exemplified by one of the main assumptions underlying Sacks' (1984) brand of conversation analysis: ...the fact of order at all points could be used to explain what are otherwise fairly strange facts—for example, that conventional sociological survey research, though it recurrently fails to satisfy constraints on proper statistical procedures, nevertheless gets orderly results; or, for example, that the anthropologist's procedures, which to involve an occasional tapping into a society, asking one or two people more or less extended questions, turn out to be often extremely generalizable. (Sacks, p. 22-23)

What Sacks actually highlights here is not the seemingly concrete fact that the world is orderly, but rather the workings of the scientific process of imposing order onto a world that defies that order in some of its most mundane details.

This orientation becomes even more apparent when one examines the metaphors that Sacks uses to describe human interaction: Our aim is to get into a position to transform, in an almost literal, physical sense, our view of "what happened," from a matter of a particular interaction done by particular people, to a matter of interactions as products of a machinery. We are trying to find the machinery, (p. 26-27) Interactional sociolinguists have moved away from generalizing to some degree, as can be seen in their foundation upon Coffman's sociological theorizing, which "forces structural attention to the contexts in which language is used: situations occasions, encounters, participation frameworks," and which presents language itself as forming and providing context

(Schiffrin, 1994, p. 134). All the same, avoiding generalization in theory i$

25 much easier than avoiding it in practice. Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1990) provides an example of how this type of generalization from fragmentary evidence shows up in interactional sociolinguistics. At one point in her analysis of African American children's talk, Goodwin makes a general claim:

"As can be seen below, recipients frequently counter claims with insult/ admonishments (#18), statements that prior speaker in fact is not different from others (#19), or disparaging comments on the relationship that speaker is attempting to portray as privileged (#20)" (p. 44). She then goes on to present three dyadic examples as proof of this, all of which include Julia, and two of which include Kerry. In essence, Goodwin generalizes about an entire neighborhood of girls based on the interactions of one girl with two other girls, never mentioning why she may have chosen those examples over ones involving a number of different girls (or boys). (A similar instance of this practice can be found in Goodwin's discussion of examples #11-13 on pp. 41-42 of her text.)

This same sort of generalization can be seen in Scheerhom's (1995) life- history-based health communication study of hemophiliacs in the Central

Ohio area. Quoting Denzin, Scheerhom characterizes "The subjective verbal and written expressions of meaning given by the individuals being studied...

[as] ...windows into the inner life of the person" (p. 127). Scheerhom takes seven of these specific "windows" and generalizes from them to address

"how the hemophiliac understands" "the condition of being an adult

26 hemophiliac in America today" (emphasis added, p. 127). These seven

interviews (plus three published essays and five informal encounters) then

function as the basis for an exposition of what Scheerhom calls "the

'hem ophiliac story"' (128) and "the 'meaning' of HIV/AIDS for the

hemophiliac community" (emphases added, p. 128). In essence, Scheerhom

constructs a monolithic narrative structure to serve as the norm for

hemophiliac identity, based on the comments of no more than 15 people in

total, all but one of whom (Ryan White) are identified as male, middle-aged

midwestemers. In addition, the widespread usage of the "window on the

world" metaphor serves to reify the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy of a

looker who is separated from the world by the wall in which the window is

set. In truth, we are always in the world outside that window, interacting with

that world as part and parcel of it.

2. Transm itting Knozulecige by Symbol Systems

Lingis's second point explains that those coherent wholes to which science pretends are represented by symbolic systems. Science then relies on these for the transference of knowledge to future generations of scientists, obscuring the original insights on which the symbolic structures were first imposed. Consequently, rather than being encouraged to come to an active understanding of concepts for oneself, the novice is pressured into passively accepting as "givens" those insights upon which a particular science is

27 founded and has been built. Bemal (1987) identifies this very process in his explanation for the frequently extra-disciplinary birth of ideas which later assume monumental importance within a given discipline. This practice of symbol reliance reifies the positivistic notion of an incrementally built fund of knowledge from which each successive generation of scientists draws. Each successive generation then simply adds without critically examining the conditions under which prior results were obtained. This mechanism also plays a part in the suppression of paradigm shifts as Kuhn (1962) noted.

Indeed, the phenomenological admonition to "return to the things themselves" refers to a counter-notion of actively engaging or testing out those givens, thus providing a context for the individual to come to a realization for herself—an active, conscious moment of "I see..." rather than a passive moment of "I accept that...." (Lingis, p. 163). A classical case of this phenomenon is related by the anecdote of Archimedes and his bathtub discovery. In this respect, returning to the things themselves becomes a metaphor for questioning philosophical presuppositions. Or, as Lingis explains, "It is the primary apparition of original reality, which has to be reinstated as the original and ultimate referent of the body of sciences" (p.

163).

That the social sciences are no exception to this reliance on symbols for the transference of knowledge is evident from Agar's (1996) call for even more "rigor" in the language of ethnography: "The advantage of

28 mathematical language is its clarity, its lack of connotations. When you use ordinary language, you need to clearly define each term before you use it....When you use mathematical language, you strip away the connotations of natural language" (pp. 241-242). Indeed, the beauty of mathematics is that it allows one to strip away the content. This magical conception of mathematics and its ability to turn everything—from an apple to a human being—into a mere, malleable number is inextricably bound up with the love affair that so many communication researchers have struck up with statistics. Mathematics is the system which allows such social scientists to convert their "human subjects" into mute "tickets in a box."

Pedagogy is another prime structure in which abjectification makes its home. One method that anthropology has employed with the effect of suppressing original insights is presented by Levi-Strauss's recommendation of "'personal' supervision in the training of the novice, suggesting that close contact with someone who has had the experience [of fieldwork] before might expedite conversion in the apprentice" (qtd. in Fabian, 1983, p. 66).

Another pedagogical example of the operation of this second axiom would be an "uninitiated" student who reads a sociolinguistic journal article on the use of "well," accompanied by a rising intonation, by native English- speakers in America as a closure device in telephone conversations. The only way the student could comprehend the essence of the article, particularly the transcription of the examples illustrating the use of "well" with all of the

29 attendant orthographic symbols, would be if the student had heard the use of

the word in her life-world experience, and she remembered it, matching her

memory of falling and rising intonation with the symbols denoting that on

the page. Had she not had the experience, she might try to match it to the

closest experience she had had, subsequently becoming sensitized to closure

devices in the experiential domain, trying to test out the truth of the article's

argument in accordance with the experiential domain. A modern-day

Archimedes, she might stand in her shower repeating "Well" with a rising

intonation until she finds the utterance to be a credible means of closing a

conversation. But, until the student has had the life-world experience on

which she can base an evaluation of the article, one cannot say she has come

to fully appreciate its truth value (or lack thereof) in relation to her singular

situation. She cannot shout "eureka!"

This example focuses our attention on the method by which many

discourse and conversation analysts transmit their data, including

communication scholars, as Albrecht, Burleson, and Goldsmith (1994) have

noted: transcription. Although there are various transcription systems,

designed for purposes of highlighting different features of discourse, many

analysts continue to use a version of the one developed by Gail Jefferson.

While the problems inherent in her system (and others) have not gone unnoted by many of those who use it, their reasons for continuing to employ it are as telling as their acknowledgment of the problem:

30 The [transcription] system is sometimes objected to as a form of "comic book" orthography that can be interpreted as being somewhat derogatory to the speakers whose talk is thus represented (Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson 1974:734). In this context, it should be noted that the transcripts result from and represent an attempt to get as much as possible of the actual sound and sequential positioning of the talk onto the page, while at the same time making this material accessible to readers unfamiliar with systems further rerrioved from standard orthography. (Atkinson and Heritage, 1984, p. 12) In essence, Atkinson and Heritage are asserting that the transmission of the information contained in the transcript is more important than the presentation of the people who were instrumental in garnering that information. In addition, they place the blame for the derogatory quality on those uninitiated readers who would wish to le am from the experts' transcript. What seems certain is that, if the people whose talk is actually presented as the "data" were to read the article they helped to create, their unfamiliarity with not only the "comic book" orthography, but also their unfamiliarity with the highly-polished, multisyllabic prose which surrounds and interprets it, would deny their access to that information.

Goodwin and Goodwin (1992) provide strong evidence of the recognition by interactional sociolinguists of the inability of a transcript to transmit aU that actually transpires in a communication interaction. In order to make certain that their reader can follow the flow of interaction in their transcript, they present a 216-word summary of the interaction, followed by the statement: "This brief overview in no way captures the subtlety and

31 intricacy of this talk. However, we hope that it will make the sequence itself

more accessible to the reader" (p. 175). Even when accompanied by a

summary, a transcription is inadequate to the task of representing reality.

The representation of reality, however, is not the only problem which

arises in a discussion of transcription. Jordan and Henderson (n.d.) note that

"Some practitioners argue that 'everything' should be transcribed because...

some other researcher might want to use the same materials for checking

findings or for novel analytic purposes" (p. 10). The question of allowing

others to use one's data is not only an ethical one, but also a methodological

one in that the transcript cannot provide enough information for the application of a truly informed analysis. With each successive removal of the analyst from the actual occurrence, one moves further into the world governed by the symbol. Furthermore, "everything" is a temporally and spatially bound construct and is thus impossible to record. "Everything" for me today may not be "everything" for you tomorrow. The complications associated with this movement are exposed more fully by Lingis's third point.

3. Imposing Symbolic Structures onto the Life-world

The third point also originates in Husserl's writings: science applies to objects in reality those structures which have been developed through the contemplation of symbols, as though there were a one-to-one relationship between the symbol and the real. In other words, real objects are not related to

32 one another in the same way that their idealized symbols are. However,

science infers that the rules, structures, and systems which operate in the

idealized realm of symbols also operate in the life-world. Any resulting

discrepancy between the result of a logical deduction and the personal

"intuition" of a particular scientist is settled in favor of the deduction,

relegating the scientist's intuition to the status of "mere human error."

Fabian (1983) addresses this very point when he notes that the effects of

temporal and spatial relationships on ethnographic "subjects" have been

denied by ethnographers. In the world of symbols, time and space have no

effect and therefore need not be entertained as mitigating factors. Yet, in the

real world of people and the meanings which they attribute to their own

being, practices, and beliefs, to deny coevakiess is to "create the objects...of

anthropological discourse" (Fabian, 1983, p. 124). Fabian also recognizes that

the symbol is one of the devices that specifically functions as a denial of

coevalness (p. 124), identifying it as one of the primary ways in which unequal power relationships are maintained and renewed (p. 149).

Such a belief in the transparency of symbols is evident in Sacks and

Schegloff's assumption that "conversation is something that we can get the actual happenings of on tape and that we can get more or less transcribed"

33 (qtd. in Atkinson and Heritage, 1984, pp. 25-26). When taken together with

Sacks's and Schegloff's attitudes on analysis, the depth of the problem becomes even more clear: ...analysis can be generated out of matters observable in the data of the interaction. The analyst is thus not required to speculate upon what the interactants hypothetically or imaginably understood, or the procedures or constraints to which they could conceivably have been oriented. Instead, analysis can emerge from observation of the conduct of the participants. (Atkinson & Heritage, p. 1) Essentially then. Sacks and Schegloff argue that apparent symbols—words and perhaps gestures—can indeed function as an acceptable basis for making generalizations about the hfe-world—the conduct of the participants adequately telegraphing their cognitive and affective states through the medium of verbal and non-verbal signs.

Furthermore, as the above quotation illustrates, practitioners of conversation analysis assume an objective orientation which can carry dangerous implications. Trusting in scientific objectivity. Sacks (1984) explains that "Treating some actual conversation in an unmotivated way, that is, giving some consideration to whatever can be found in any particular conversation..., subjecting it to investigation in any direction that can be produced from it, can have strong payoffs" (p. 27). While the possibility of approaching anything in an "unmotivated way" is problematic in and of itself, what concerns me are the consequences that "subjecting it to investigation in any direction" will have for the "subjects" themselves.

Folklorist David Hufford (1995) rightly locates this posture of objectivity as a

34 problem associated with power differentials: "The requirement of disinterest as a qualification for the study of matters in which all persons have an interest is a paradox that reflects the tensions produced when one (powerful) group studies another (less powerful) group" (p. 62). Or, as Agar (1996) notes,

"Issues of power apply to the study as well as to the worlds of the people studied" (p. 29).

Lingis''s third point is particularly relevant to all social sciences because their subjects, the myriad aspects of human beings and their relationships, are characteristically communication-oriented. And communication, in particular, is highly susceptible to a degradative process in which participants come to rely more and more heavily on symbolic representations of the insights of others at the expense of the active formulation of insights. The school of Symbolic Interactionism cannot help but spring to mind at this juncture. However, communication, by definition, "substitutes passive recall for reactivation of insight" (Lingis, p. 165). Taken to the extreme, if one were to leam only through communication, at the expense of any understanding achieved through insight (or "personal experience"), one's perception of

"reality" would be based in its entirety on idealized symbols, and would thus be radically different from what reality really is; such a perception, were it possible, would be necessarily false.

One might see in this a version of the primary/secondary experience dichotomy which also becomes problematic in ethnographies when scholars

35 rely upon secondary sources collected by other researchers as the basis of their

theorizing. As shown in the discussion of the second point, the extension of

the gulf between the "subject" and the ultimate reader of that "subject's"

words is thereby further complicated; important, qualifying context is lost

with each successive removal, a reductive process mirroring the one which

occurs when one moves from a videotape recording to an audiotape

recording to the hand-written field notes of the same interaction. A second­

hand researcher is left holding a sieve.

4. Depersonalizing the Researcher

For his fourth point, Lingis turns to Heidegger's discussion of

communication's tendency to extinguish "the light of personal insight" m his

critique of "talk" (das Gerede) (Lingis, pp. 165-66). As Lingis explains,

Heidegger locates the problem in "an active existential structure" (166). The practice of presenting one's insights as though they were equal to or

synonymous with those of anyone else is the site of the birth of unauthentic

speech. In other words, taking up a posture of anonymity in one's speech-

allowing the meaning of one's words to be weighed as equivalent to those same words as spoken by anyone else—negates the differences between the realities which those words represent and erases the singularity of one's own experience. Such is Agar's (1996) point when he reminds his reader that

"Whether it is your personality, your rules of social interaction, your cultural

36 bias toward significant topics, your professional training, or something else, you do not go into the field as a passive recorder of data" (p. 98). We must keep that premise in mind during the writing of the ethnography as well as during the doing of it.

Some of the ways by which writers make themselves interchangeable, thus negating their individuality, include the conventions of "objective" scientific writing, such as using the passive voice and presenting oneself as an interchangeable "one" rather than as a unique "I." This abjectifying practice is directly related to the requirement in positivistic science (including many areas of social science) that a scientist's method section be written in such a manner that it may be replicated precisely by another scientist, or indeed anyone else, with exactly the same results. This is the manner in which one tests an experimental design, and it is also the double way in which individual scientists are erased—become non-entities—from the process.

While that may be fine in titration exercises, such a replication is impossible in research which involves a human community.

In terms of ethnography, authors have additional techniques for becoming invisible. Although folklorists have widely accepted the notion that the presence of the ethnographer affects the context, and thus the content, of the ethnographic encounter and its subsequent write-up, it is in the write-up that the disappearing act takes place. Crapanzano (1986) discusses this phenomenon in his critique of Geertz's brand of ethnography. He notes,

37 "in most ethnographic texts, including Geertz's, the 'I' itself disappears except

in conventional tales of entry or in-text evaluation shifters and becomes

simply a stylistically borne 'invisible' voice" (p. 71). An example of this is

Geertz's "blurr[ing of] his own subjectivity...with the subjectivity of the

villagers (Crapanzano, 1986, p. 71).

Atkinson and Heritage (1984) illustrate how conversation analysis

achieves just such invisibility for its practitioners. In one discussion, they

claim that a second speaker's analysis is available to the first speaker and to

the social scientists in the same way, allowing the social scientists to analyze

both speakers' turns "and employ methodologies that fuUy take account of

these analyses and treatments....without hypothesizing or speculating about

the possible ways in which utterances, sentences, or texts might be

interpreted" (p. 9). Thus, time, space, personality, all are discounted. Such a

stance functions not only to depersonalize the researcher, but also to

depersonalize the "subjects" as well.

Interactional sociolinguists have also engaged in this type of depersonalization. Linde (1993) offers us an example when she states, "Nor is it the concern of this study to use a life story to formulate claims about the speaker. Doing so would involve postulating entities such as personality types and intrapsychic processes, which would move the investigation far from the text itself" (p. 16). Once the utterance of a thinking, feeling being with concerns and desires specific to her own situations—past, present, and

38 future—the life story has now become a disembodied text, the story severed from the life. And yet, Linde's methodology strains against this very maneuver when she stipulates that a life story's "evaluative point [must] primarily be to show something about the kind of person the speaker is, rather than to demonstrate something about the way the world is" (p. 22). In order to determine the narrative's evaluative point, we must recognize motivation, which Merleau-Ponty (1989) presents, alongside decision, as an element of a situation, "an antecedent which acts only through its significance" (p. 259). Motivation, which can also be understood as the condition of "mutual simultaneous shaping" (Lincoln and Cuba, 1985, p. 37) is in fact the conceptual premise which phenomenology accepts in contradistinction to causality. Both "the kind of person the speaker is" and

"the way the world is" are directly interrelated and inseparable; they are forever mutually shaping each other. (See chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion of motivation.)

A positive example of the ways in which ethnographers have turned the individuality of their presence to their advantage is Bard's (1994) ethnography of homeless people. In her discussion of her fieldwork experience, Bard explains, "My success in establishing rapport and obtaining heretofore untold stories was based on my recall and emulation of behavior during my own period of homelessness" (p. 78). Although her use of this strategy comes close to masquerade and manipulation—heavily power-laden

39 practices—a more positive aspect of this explanation is its introduction of the

notion of a common, shared experience between the folklorist and the

"subject" as a basis for understanding each other, resulting in the subversion

of abject communication.

Communication researchers, such as Scheerhom (1995), have also

recognized the value of presenting themselves as sharing characteristics with

their "subjects" as a way of learning more intimate details about the lives they

which to study. However, the distinctly machiavellian character of this type

of researcher self-presentation can directly feed into an abject style of doing

research rather than serving to equalize the division of power. It is important

to note that Scheerhom relies on his own experience as a person with

hemophilia only as a means of gaining entrée, never subjecting his own life

history to the scrutiny that he turns upon those provided through

interviewing. Scheerhom's (and others') tactics thus serve to illustrate how

some of the hidden dangers of the movement towards "native ethnography"

begin to emerge when examined under the light of abject communication

theory.

5. Abdicating Responsibility

The fifth point Lingis makes is related to the disappearing act discussed above: an author's posturing herself as anonymous is symptomatic of the abdication of responsibility for her ow n utterances (p. 167). Agar (1996) rightly

40 points to this as an important point which has gone unnoticed in many critical ethnographies. He states that according to the "new ethnography/'

"One is supposed to diminish authority, not to claim it. I don't think so. I think the new issues around doing ethnography call for more authority, more responsibility, not less" (p. 15).

There are a number of ways in which authors avoid taking responsibility for their pronouncements and effectively disappear from the text. The phrases "People say that...," "They say that...," and "It is said that..." are formulae for achieving such a non-responsible stance. In contrast, the authentic speech is one that is characterized by "I affirm that..."—a formula which posits the "I" as primary and which, in its active first-person construction, directs responsibility for the truth value of the speech act unavoidably to the speaker herself. (Here I use authentic in its "originary" sense rather than the more commonly ascribed sense of "genuine" or

"authoritative.") Lingis explain this type of speech more clearly in a passage in Excesses: Through speech one comes into the presence of the other, in his alterity. Perception, feeling, even sympathetic or empathetic feeling, and action, even collaboration, may remain on the phenomenal surfaces, where the other is but appearance and relative being. But genuine speech, which answers to a demand and answers a contestation, is responsibility before an appeal and initiative of justification, reveals the veritably other. This speech has to be itself veridical. (1983, p. 135)

41 Both Crapanzano and Fabian identify the use of "you" as another way of funneling responsibility away from the writer and onto a nebulous, absent other (Crapanzano, 1986: 70-72; Fabian 1983: 84-86). Not surprisingly, this is but another strategy that has its roots in the inequahty characteristic of the relationship between the ethnographer and the "subject." As Hufford (1995) points out, "'W hat is increased objectivity to the outsider...is increased risk to the insider" (p. 62). The solution to this problem of irresponsible speaking or writing is to engage in what Lingis (via Heidegger) refers to as "authentic speech acts," a practice which forcefully locates the speaker as a responsible originator of an utterance.

Such an non-responsible and unequal stance is evident in the way in which Marjorie Harness Goodwin (1990) designates her own—albeit infrequent—participation in the interactions she has transcribed as examples.

While she lists the full first name of the girl with whom she interacted,

"Kerry," she designates herself by her initials, "MHG." In addition, when she applies her analysis to this specific example, she only analyses the response to her question, failing to subject her own words to the same scrutiny to which she has subjected those of Kerry (p. 220, ex. 37). In an analysis such as

Goodwin's, the presence of the "investigator" should be more visible as well as more subject to the same treatment as that of the "informant."

42 la After the Fact (1995) Geertz both addresses and skirts the issue of

responsibility when he explains: ...the laborious, winding, and nervously self-conscious tracing of how one has come to say what one has come to say [has] something to do with the necessity, if one adopts it, of taking personal responsibility for the cogency of what one says.or writes, because one has, after all, said or written it, rather than displacing that responsibility onto "reality," "nature," "the world," or some other vague and capacious reservoir of incontaminate truth, (p. 62) According to the theory of abject communication, Geertz's statements on the

nature of responsibility are telling indeed, and point up not only the abjection

that he imposes upon his "subjects" but also his own abjection in the face of

his discipline. Geertz's self-consciousness and nervousness regarding the

ways he has reached his conclusions should alert the reader to his weakness, a

suspicion that his conclusions are invalid. But Geertz presents his anxiety as a

concern not for validity»’ b u t for cogency, which is defined as "convincing or

believable by virtue of forcible, clear, or incisive presentation; telling; to the

point, relevant, pertinent" (Webster's, 1989, p. 286). Thus, cogency has no

relation to validity or truth-clahns. What Geertz is worried about is his

rhetorical prowess in the face of his colleagues, not whether he has done right by his "subjects" in presenting their experience of the life-world as best he could through hermeneutic reflection. As noted by Crapanzano (1986) and

Fabian (1990a), a heightened concern with rhetorical presentation has been associated with power-laden discourse in anthropological studies for some time now (Crapanzano, p. 75; Fabian, p. 112).

43 One excellent example of an ethnographer who realized her responsibility to her co-laborers and acted upon that responsibility is Barbara

Myerhoff (1994). The fact that her elderly "subjects" in Number Our Days were going to die magnified the necessity for sensitivity to their textual and filmic presentations. This is similar to the position of the ethnographer who works with illiterate "informants" or who publishes works about co-laborers in a language which they cannot read. In all these cases, the ethnographer must realize that the co-laborers carmot object to the portraits of themselves and their worldviews, and she must thus accept the responsibility that goes with the enduring presentation of those portraits.

6. Elevating Communication to the Highest Level of Importance

This last point brings us to a sixth assumption of abject communication theory, expressed first by Heidegger: "Communication is not the norm of authentic speech" (Lingis, p. 167). Rather, truth should be the primary goal of speech. As mentioned earlier, the concept of truth considered here is situational, intertwined with the concepts of responsibility and originality.

Agar (1996) also notes the importance of truth as a motivator of expression:

"...I think truth and beauty do run in tandem, that when people 'get on a roll' as the popular phrase puts it, they're rolling because of some powerful and coherent truth inside them that drives their words" (p. 49). That is not a truth that chooses its words so that it might be understood. As Lingis explains,

44 "authentic" speech becomes "unauthentic" as soon as it is posited as

expressing "the way things generally are" (p. 166). In other words, truths are

situational, and their responsible expression relies heavily on

contextuaHzation. Fabian (1990a) also addresses the dangers of an over­

reliance upon communication: "It can in fact become a dangerous concept if

merely to assert it is believed to guarantee 'powerfree' interaction on equal

term s" (p. 5).

One aspect of the devaluation of truth in ethnography is related to my

earlier discussion of the ethnographer's disappearance from the text. The

author's invisible stance can result in the presentation of time-bound

observations as timeless truths. For instance, Kapchan (1993) bases her entire

essay about Moroccan women's body adornment practices on her

acquaintance with one herma artist (p. 5), but she does not hesitate to make

sweeping generalizations such as, "This is true of all henna occasions....there

is always laughter and levity..." (p. 16).

This is also something in which Van Maanen's (1988) impressionist

ethnographers engage when they produce a text: "By holding back on

interpretation and sticking to the story, impressionists are saying, in effect,

'here is this world, make of it what you will" (p. 103). This is actually just the illusion of invisibility on the part of the authors. As Gadamer (1972/1994) clearly illustrates, by telling a particular story in particular words, impressionists have already embedded interpretations in it.

45 An instance of this type of authorial disappearance can be found in

Geertz's (1973) description of a Balinese cockfight, a piece which Van Maanen

(1988) has designated as "perhaps the most famous" impressionist tale (p.

107). A brief example would be Geertz's pronouncement that "The Balinese never do anything in a simple way that they can do in a complicated one, and to this generalization cockfight wagering is no exception" (1973, p. 425). In this one sentence, Geertz has categorized each and every Balinese person and each and every one of their situations as being the same, failing to qualify it with any responsible tag such as, "It has been my experience that..." or "I have learned that...." (See Geertz 1973, pp. 437-441 for extensive examples.) Call it by any other name, including generalization, stereotyping is still stereotyping.

Interestingly enough, Geertz points to the very solution for this problem in the above-quoted passage. For, according to Heidegger, the way to circumvent this "anonifying" function of communication is to engage in the articulation of one's singular situation rather than in the articulation of generalities in the w orld.

7. Communicating Lacks, Wants, and Needs

Finally, Lingis relates the Heideggerian concept of unauthentic speech to Nietzsche's discourse on herd symbols. These, Lingis explains, are the general forms of signs which are constructed for the purpose of communication, as opposed to those signs which express singularity and

46 which are developed for the purpose of enunciating truth (p. 168). In

Nietzsche's understanding, those thoughts which require communicability

are those which present the needs, lacks, and wants of the speaker. It is the

desire to get the needs filled that compels the speaker to make his utterance

communicable to others—those who may be able and willing to fill the needs.

In turn, expressions of needs and lacks are welcomed by others, who

see them as "appeals to themselves, expressions of dependence on them,

declarations of subservience, invitations to subjugation" (Lingis, p. 168).

Ultimately, this pattern of always expressing lacks and needs, of "formulating

[oneself] as negativity" (p. 168), relates to the speaker's feeling self-conscious,

which is essentially the process of "becoming weak" (p. 168). This practice is

somewhat characteristic of the genre Van Maanen (1988) has labeled

"confessional" in that "Often the ethnographer mentions personal biases, character flaws, or bad habits as a way of building an ironic self-portrait with which the readers can identify (See, I'm just Like you, full of human foibles)"

(p. 75). While it is true that a researcher must be self-reflexive in her approach to the community, as mentioned earlier, she must also take responsibility for what she has said and done. In realit}'-, the author is not just like the reader...the author has written the ethnography, the reader is reading it.

In contrast, affirmative expressions of our most positive aspects, of our joy in living, of our "inner vibrancy" (Lingis, p. 169) have no reliance upon an understanding other or a judgmental interlocutor. Such expressions are

47 authentic in and of themselves and find their value in their very expression.

Their value would remain constant despite the lack of an audience,

understanding or not. An example of this would be the poet who devotes her life to her poetry, finding supreme enjoyment in the writing of it, yet never attempting to publish those creative expressions. Of course, utterances of self- sufficiency, of power, of independence, and of seLf-fuIfilknent are precisely those which do not recommend themselves to the herd and are therefore not welcomed the way that expressions of weakness and servility are. In fact, there is a concerted effort on the part of the herd to silence such expressions because they are so threatening in their self-sufficient, self-affirming power.

Traces of this attitude are seen in the material some social scientists have chosen to examine. In their introduction to Gumperz's work, Duranti and Goodwin (1992) note, "As often done in the social sciences..., a failure to apply the appropriate inferential process is used as an avenue to explore the nature of tools typically employed in successful cases" (p. 229). What this amounts to is a focus on the needs, lacks, and wants of the "subjects," with the stated research goal being the improvement of communication skills and the avoidance of misunderstanding. However, one must ask if the recommendations for more effective communication will ever reach the eyes and ears of the "subjects" whose inabilities, failures, and lacks were exposed as the price for those recommendations.

48 Another such example would be Atkinson's (1984) chapter on "some

techniques for inviting applause." As illustrated by this subtitle, the

presumable reason for reading this piece would be to leam how to invite

applause and become a more persuasive public speaker. Yet, the article

adheres to the standard conversation analytic convention of surrounding the

"data," with highly edited, formal, jargon-laden prose. While Atkinson relies

on the speech of common people and their political leaders to reach his

conclusions, he renders those conclusions in such a way that not only they,

but social scientists from other fields as well, would be hard pressed to extract

from it that which sociolinguists will. In essence then, one could say that

Atkinson is using the ordinary person's discourse in order to teach members

of his own group how to invite applause. I can see the benefit here for the

researchers, but where is the benefit in this publication for the very people

Atkinson used to get the information?

The relationship between ethnography and this final aspect of abject communication is clearly present in the mission of earlier anthropologists to

"civilize" and "save" the unsuspecting "natives," as well as in projects designed to preserve the folklore of "natives" who would surely lose it if it weren't for the salvaging hand of the ethnographer. Such is Kodish's (1987) point when she criticizes "descriptions of silenced folk waiting for discovery by outsiders" (p. 575). Clifford (1988) illustrates how particular

49 conceptualizations of language also fostered inequality in relationships between researchers and "subjects." Notice how power-laden the vocabulary of this passage is: For Griaule every informant's self-presentation (along with that of the ethnographer) was a dramatization, a putting forward of certain truths and a holding back of others. In penetrating these conscious or unconscious disguises the fieldworker had to exploit whatever advantages, whatever sources of power, whatever knowledge not based on interlocution he or she could acquire, (p. 68) The health communication work of Roxanne Parrott (1995) serves to illustrate that Griaule's attitude is aHve and well in communication studies.

In her book chapter, she presents an analysis of "sensitive subjects," topics which people generally avoid discussing (here, even with doctors), such as sexually transmitted diseases. That her orientation is similar to that of

Griaule is made clear by her statement that "Recognizing the variables that act as resistors to self-disclosure provides one indicator of when other methods of gathering data about individuals should be used" (p. 128). In addition, her justification for her own research indicates her methodological abjection:

"specifying why and when individuals are more or less likely to reveal personal information about themselves has far-reaching potential to significantly affect applied settings, particularly in relation to health care" (pp.

178-179). Essentially, she is saying that if we study why people don't talk about

50 certain things, we can leam ways to get them to talk, even if they don't want to. Such a research orientation brings to mind the interrogator's threat... "We have ways of making you talk."

A Response to Performance Theory

Because of the widespread acceptance of Performance theory by both

Communication scholars and by Folklorists, this particular approach merits some additional discussion. Problematic are both its insistence on competence as an element of performance and its tendency to apply a textual metaphor to social interactions.

According to Briggs (1988), his larger goal in Competence in

Performance is to "draw on a study of the abilities that underlie performances in providing insight into the nature of communicative competence in general" (p. 5). In this theoretical movement, he is focussing on a concept which Hymes developed in response to Noam Chomsky's theory of "linguistic competence." The additions to this grammatical theory which Hymes has made include the idea that "a child acquires also a system of its use, regarding persons, places, purposes, other modes of communication, etc.—all components of communicative events, together with attitudes and beliefs regarding them" (Hymes qtd. in Briggs, p. 6). In many respects, this recalls the ancient rhetorical notion of ethos, the proverbial "good man speaking well." This becomes particularly clear when

51 the concept of responsibility is adjoined to competence in Performance

theory, and it helps to explain the welcoming reception that theory has found

with rhetoricians in Communication and English departments.

As rhetoricians have realized, a great deal of power resides in the

ability to speak well in a given situation and to a given audience—that is, in

communicative competence—and the centrality of persuasion that some

rhetoricians accord to definitions of rhetoric is a way to approach one

encumbrance that the requirement of "competence" in folkloric

performances places upon the ethnographer. Persuasion is an inherently

power-oriented activity, and notions of competence are, as Briggs and others

have realized, sanctioned by the community of auditors to a particular

"performative event." Bendix (1997) has noted that the locus of power in performance studies lies "solely in the actor" (p. 201). It could be further argued that "competence" is a form of "cultural capital" which affords its holder the right to speak with authority.

The incompetent do not have the right to speak (perform), and thus hold less (or no power) in the interpretation of tradition that so many folklorists have noted as occurring in a performance. And, while Briggs deals with hegemony, in a movement designed to counter charges that

Performance theory has failed to link the micro-situation to the macro­ situation, this is an "external" hegemony of "the dominant culture" on the

Mexicano culture that he studies (pp. 360-361). In reality, this is nothing new, if one recalls Folklore's early interest in the culture of the "folk"—the cultural

52 underdogs—as opposed to the "High Culture" of the upper classes. (An alternative way of linking the ethnographic situation to the global context is through the application of political economic analysis to the local situation, as discussed in chapter 4.) Briggs does not deal with the hegemony that takes place within the smaller performative community that he is studying. In effect. Performance theory's requirements of competence and responsibility can have the effect of creating a Spivakian "subaltern" in every folkloric process.

A second problem which competence requirements impose involves the judging of competence levels. Although ethnographers themselves first made these judgments based on criteria they had developed. Performance theorists have realized that imposing such external definitions of competence can be unfounded in relation to the community in which the performance takes place, further impeding the ethnographer's understanding. However, as

Goldstein (1995) notes, it may take a great amount of time and interaction with the community for an ethnographer to attain competence in applying community competency standards (p. 33). Her own example of coming to an understanding of community competency notions occurred approximately four years after the event she describes, and it serves to illustrate how different a community's requirements may be from the particular ethnographer's own notion of competency. Similarly, Briggs's association with the New Mexican community he writes about had continued for

53 fourteen years before the publication of his book. Such time requirements can be financially restrictive for a great many folklorists whose funding sources fail to see a need for such lengthy fieldwork situations.

The issues of authenticity and tradition have been linked to

Performance theory since at least Hymes's (1975) classic piece "Breakthrough into Performance." There, he explains the concept of "full, authentic or authoritative performance, where the standards intrinsic to the tradition in which the performance occurs are accepted and realized" (p. 18). Such a view of authenticity and tradition predates the later debates in folklore. Glassie's

(1995) widely-accepted definition of tradition as "the means for deriving the future from the past and ...a volitional temporal action" (p. 409) and

Hobsbawm's (1983) exposition on the "invented" nature of many seemingly

"ancient" traditions have introduced folklorists to the other side of the coin: the ever-present possibility for denying the acceptance of traditional elements to which the notion of tradition as being an "active handing-down" inherently points. (See chapter 4 for a further discussion of tradition and authenticity.)

Taking note of this change in the conception of tradition, Briggs (1988) hints at this issue when he states "the placement of such emphasis on the force of tradition might provide fuel for scholars who would identify folklore with the conservative, passive repetition of what has come before" (pp. 98-99).

The problem is that listening only to the performances of people who have

54 been accorded the "authority" to speak fads to open up the possibility for an

exposition of minority perspectives within the culture. It may just be that this problem of authenticity is related to the textualization of social interaction

that currently occurs in Performance theory.

Noting some of the weaknesses historically associated with folklore's earlier attempts to collect "authentic" texts, Ben-Amos (1972) is considered one of the forerunners in the field's movement towards a communication- oriented approach, adopting the notion of folklore as a particular type of

"communicative process" (p. 9) or a "communicative event" (p. 10), and finally coming to define it as "artistic communication in small groups" (p. 13).

Breaking that down, we get an occurrence which, in its artistic quality, is not to be considered "regular" or "literal," a quality which is known by observable signs, referred to as "keys" (after Coffman). These combine to make up an

"interpretive frame," which functions to guide the audience into approaching the event in the appropriate manner.

The different "appropriate marmers" of interpretation later became classified by genres, a word which serves as a first clue to the literary influences on the enterprise. Ben-Amos's small group focus further introduced notions of face-to-face interactions as being the site of folkloric processes, thus excluding mediated forms of communication. Hence, the temporal-spatial limits pertaining to "ordinary face-to-face" communication are placed upon folklore in this definition. Interactants in the "event" are essentially the sender (performer) and receiver (audience) of early

55 communication theorizing (e.g.. Magic Bullet and Limited Effects theories)

who were involved in a one-way (and later two-way, as in "emergence")

exchange of a third element: the message (text). This occurrence came to be

known as a "performative event" by the folklorists who advocated

Performance theory.

Yet, there was also another group of folklorists who followed more

closely the social scientific trajectory (see Dégh & Vazsonyi, 1975, p. 222) on

which a large portion of communication researchers (in the discipline) still

remain. Examples of these early folkloric experiments have a somewhat

humorous resemblance to the "Telephone Game," which focuses on the

distortion of a message as it is mediated from person to person. While this positivistic, quantifying approach basically died in Folklore, it has flourished in Communication.

Based on what I have come to regard as a fascinating example of the benefits of a perfunctory Foucauldian genealogical analysis into "the interdisciplinary trends" of late twentieth century American cultural studies,

I argue that a strange meeting has taken place in Performance theory, in which sociolinguistic methods and methodologies have come to dominate both Folklore and Communication scholars in a fetishization of the literary text as a basis for theorizing social encounters.

While it is impossible from my philosophical perspective to make causal claims regarding the nature of the relationship between Ben-Amos's definition and the choice of "communication theorists" he and others

56 followed, clearly there is a relational process of simultaneous shaping going on here. There is a general agreement among folklorists that the origin of their theories lies in the essentially anthropological and sociolinguistic work of Hymes, Bateson, Coffman, Garfinkel, Gumperz, and Labov, among others

(Ben-Amos and Goldstein 1975, p. 3; Abrahams 1972, p. 287 n. 3; Hymes 1975, p. 12 n. 1; Shum an & Briggs 1993, p. 113; Baum an 1977, p. 9; Briggs, 1988, p. 4).

Although none of these theorists necessarily claim (or are claimed) to

"belong" to the discipline of Communication, their work has also functioned as a basis for Communication scholars engaged in conversation and discourse analysis.

I contend that this sociolinguistic approach has both limited and expanded the horizons of folklorists who have wished to make the move towards considering their objects of study as processes rather than as products.

Sociolinguistic theories can help us to understand some of the more mechanical aspects of small-group communicative processes, as well as what some have called "cultural performances" (which are more suited to the script/role dramatic analogies that Gofhnan developed).

However, as many folklorists have objected, following the route that

Abrahms took in defining folklore, claiming that "folklore is folklore only when performed" (1972, p. 28), cuts off many avenues to areas of study that have traditionally been associated with folkloric processes. Belief studies, material culture studies, identity studies, and mass-mediated culture studies are either radically shifted in their focus by the Performance theory approach,

57 or they are excluded from folkloristic inquiry entirely (see Goldstein, 1995, pp.

28, 32; Limon and Young, p. 1986, 445; Brenneis, 1993, p. 295; Shum an &

Briggs, 1993, passim).

Various aspects of the Performance theory paradigm have been isolated as being responsible for the exclusion of these various areas of folklore scholarship, including its emphasis on the roles and spatial locations of interactants, responsibility, emergence, and competence. I contend that one of the most problematic aspects of the Performance theory approach to folklore is its refusal to abandon what Pilotta (1993) has called the metaphor of "the social text" in its attempts to analyze the myriad communication modalities which exist in the experiential domain. In other words. Performance theorists are guilty of having placed the cart before the horse, analyzing a whole

(folkloric communication) by methods derived for the purposes of analyzing a secondary part (folkloric texts).

That is not to say that Performance theory has not made progress in theorizing its chosen types of communicative events. Indeed, their theorizing further and further on the concept of the text is evidence of their sensing a problem. It's a lot like the saddle sore that gives away the presence of a burr.

But rather than dropping the text metaphor altogether, it seems that adherents to Performance theory have been moving deeper and deeper into the text. From their first position of reading between the lines, they have followed their sociolinguistic mentors into and among the interstices of the words and gestures, trying to understand meaning on a micro level, taking

58 into account the perspectives of performers, regular audience members, and even themselves (with the popular self-reflexive move). The historical developments to which I refer are those presented by Bauman and Briggs

(1990, pp. 72-73) as following a trajectory of Text -> Context ->

ContextuaHzation -> Entextualization. This present stage of entextuaHzation involves the dual processes of decontextualization and recontextualization which attempt to situate the micro in the macro. While these processes seem as though they could be valuable, many scholars have noted the lengthy amount of time involved in such work, making it financially unfeasible for many folklorists.

These steps that Performance theory has made are good ones, but it has now come time for a final move, that which I have named "a-textualization," providing a paralleHsm between my "new" idea and the trajectory that

Bauman and Briggs have laid out. (I use the a- prefix in the sense which

Gebser [1985] does when theorizing the "a-perspectival," or the movement

"beyond perspectival." The "a-textual," then, would be the movement beyond the text.) This movement "beyond the text" is one that Spitzer evokes in his idea of folklore practice as "cultural conversation" (qtd. in Bendix, 1997, pp.

198-199).

The fact of the matter is that communication and creative expression can occur outside of textual production. This is one reason why folklorists such as Roberts (1993) have turned to defining folklore in more open terms

59 such as "vernacular creativity" (p. 158). In truth, that is where creativity occurs the majority of the time: in the experiential domain—in doing, in making, and in interacting with others. It is then recorded in a text. When we have a conversation—when we interact in the world—a majority of the time, we do not havé a text (or script) which we follow. In those times that we do, a textually-based Performance theory should be welcomed as a sophisticated methodology which is germane to the "event."

Pilotta (1993) discusses four problematic issues related to the application of a "textual metaphor" to social interaction. First, "the social text represents not just a changeable but a self-cognizantly incomplete expression"

(p. 352). That is, social interactions are incomplete "parts" in comparison to texts, which "express whole meaning always" (Gadamer, 1972, p. 367, my translation). Furthermore, interactants realize and work by the assumption that a whole meaning is not present in the words they are speaking or gestures they are making. Conversations always point to something more outside of themselves, beyond themselves, including the culture in which they occur. No degree of mere contextualization around the centered text of words, etc. can hope to include all that bears (and is borne upon by) the observable words and "cues" that sociolinguistic approaches were designed to register.

Second, Pilotta points out that the "determination of the 'meaning' or, indeed, socially significant interconnections inhabiting the text strains under the burden of authorship" (p. 353). In essence, this means that there are too

60 many "authors" involved in order to examine all that motivates them fully.

The realization of this multi-authored nature of an interaction, its being effected by so many participants, lies behind the attempts by Bauman and

Briggs (1990) to access the perspectives of performers, audience members, and themselves, as all of them are crucial to rmderstanding the event. Brenneis

(1993) also notes this when he calls for audience members to be considered more as "'coperformers'...the locus of creativity lying between coparticipants in the event" (p. 295).

Furthermore, "it [the social text] most certainly exhibits properties of an eminent text" (Pilotta, 1993, p. 353). That the interpretation of such a textual event fully rests on an interpreter (the scholar) who desires to "raise meaningful and relevant research questions" (p. 354) is noted by scholars who point out that folklorists must be present at an event to be able to apply

Performance theory as it demands to be applied. It is also this aspect that leads to calls for self-reflexivity and the examination of the scholar's own motivations in the conduct of the research.

This brings us to the final problem with the textual metaphor: "The social text represents an explicit composition of the social research scientist"

(p. 355), and thus is a process of putting determined meanings to uses that they were not intended for. In general, the telling of a joke in the natural context of a conversation is not intended for it to later be parsed and analyzed as a selected piece of "discourse."

61 In sum then, to look at folklore as a communication process, we must give up our focus on the notion of the process as the communication of a particular message (of both "traditional" and/or "innovative" origins) between a performer and an audience and truly consider it a process of

interaction that creates a shared meaning, and which may or may not have

textual aspects, depending upon the situation. Ethnography is a process

including (at least) the two recursive stages of "doing" and "writing about doing." Keeping this in mind can allow folklorists to continue in their appreciation of, inquiry into, and presentation of the multifaceted realm of human meaning-making activities that have been their historical domain of expertise.

A Response to the Application of the Inductive Logic of Statistical Analysis to

Qualitative Research

In their 1994 work, Desig7iing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in

Qualitative Research, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba present as their primary purpose the melding of the quantitative and qualitative research traditions "by applying a unified logic of inference to both," claiming that differences between these paradigms "are mainly ones of style and specific technique" (p. 3). Indeed, they state explicitly that "the same logic of

62 inference underlies the best qualitative research, and all qualitative and quantitative researchers would benefit by more explicit attention to this logic in the course of designing research" (p. 3).

Over-arching, value-laden claims such as these implicitly invite the critical response of social scientists of all disciplines who employ qualitative research based on philosophical assumptions which directly contradict the claims of primacy for inferential logic that these political scientists make. A diametrically opposed point of view, phenomenological hermeneutics argues that the underlying logic of quantitative research must be seen as one which is articulated through notions of quality rather than quantity.

As the authors note in their text, "science at its best is a social enterprise" (p. 9). They go on to explain the limitations of researchers and the commonality of error-production in scientific inquiry. While science is always a culturally-located social enterprise, despite whether it is done poorly or well, the authors have touched upon an important issue: the relational situation of the production of scientific knowledge. Or, to put it in other philosophical terms, the production of scientific knowledge follows a pattern of thesis and antithesis, which can then interact and lead to synthesis.

Without antithesis, no progress towards knowledge can occur. No checks on the premises first set forth can be made. First I will challenge the text's presentation of interpretive social science and then enumerate the

63 philosophical presuppositions underlying what Lincoln and Cuba (1985) refer to as the Naturalistic Paradigm. Following that, I will discuss several problematics presented by King, Keohane, and Verba's methodology.

Although the authors set up three strawmen in their attempt to illustrate the primacy of their philosophical position, those being

"Interpretation," "Uniqueness" and "Comparative Case Studies," I will focus on their treatment of "interpretation." King, Keohane, and Verba present a naïve, as well as dated, account of the interpretive perspective. In fact, they attribute this perspective to anthropologists and historians (p. 36). However,

Verstehen is a communication theory which has been adopted by these and other disciplines, as witnessed by Clifford Geertz's fundamental reliance on the hermeneutics of communication philosophers such as Hans Georg

Gadamer and Paul Ricour for his theoretical basis.

The problem with King, Keohane, and Verba's presentation of hermeneutics rests at a radical level: the sources on which the authors rely.

Interestingly enough for a book published in 1994, Geertz's work (particularly his 1973 volume) is the only primary source (other than one of their own edited volumes) which the authors cite in this section. Their other source.

The Handbook of Political Science, is hardly a location where one would expect to find an insightful portrait of a communication theory. Furthermore, their reliance on Geertz as the producer of "One of the best and most famous examples in the interpretive tradition" (p. 38) is also problematic. As Paul

64 Rabinow (one of Geertz's former students) wrote in a 1986 volume which is now considered canonical in a multitude of disciplines, "the moment when

the historical profession is discovering cultural anthropology in the

(unrepresentative) person of Clifford Geertz is just the moment when Geertz is being questioned in anthropology" (pp. 241-242). The same charge could be laid at the door of political science, only they seem to be arriving on the scene almost a decade later.

As for the interpretive political scientist whom the authors quote,

Ferejohn, scholars of phenomenological hermeneutics would absolutely disagree with his goal statement: We want social science theories to provide causal explanations of events...[and] to give an account of the reasons for or meanings of social action. We want to know not only what caused the agent to perform some act but also the agent's reasons for taking the action, (qtd. in King, Keohane, and Verba, 1994, p. 37) Truly, the question of causality is far from being entertained by hermeneutic scholars. As Pilotta has reiterated: If you are asking the "Why" question, you are already on the wrong track. The question we try to answer is "How." If it's not "How," then you are just affirming the way things are, not addressing the conditions for the possibility of how things could be otherwise. (Communication 870; 29 October 1997) Although I will return to the issue of the affirmation of the status quo in my later discussion of power and social science, the important point to note here relates to research orientation. We are not interested in questions of causality.

65 An additional passage in this section further illustrates the authors'

lack of an understanding of hermeneutics. They quote The Handbook of

Political Science: Scholars who emphasize "interpretation" seek to illuminate the intentional aspects of human behavior by employing Verstehen ("empathy: understanding the meaning of actions and interactions from the members' own points of view" [Eckstein 1975:81]). Interpretivists seek to explain the reasons for intentional action in relation to the whole set of concepts and practices in which it is em bedded, (qtd. in BCing, Keohane, and Verba, 1994, p. 37) This passage contains two misleading statements which serve to obfuscate the

position of hermeneutics, both of which are attributable to the problem of

translation. Of greater importance is the gloss of Verstehen which they

quote. Although Verstehen can be translated from the German as

"empathy," this is not the standard hermeneutic usage of the term. Rather,

the etymology of the term is the key. As Pilotta notes, Verstehen literally

translated means Ver-: "coming to" and stehen: "stand under." Thus,

Verstehen is best translated as "the study of how things came to stand the

way they are," or "understanding" for short (Communication 870; 29 October

1997). Such a translation does not carry the mushy, psychological cormotations of "empathy," on which King, Keohane, and Verba trade in their dismissal of the perspective.

A second translation issue arises with the word "intentional." Whereas the English word denotes causality, "the reasons for an action" (as illustrated by the authors' explanation of it), "intentionality" comes from the Latin verb

66 intendere, which translates literally as "to stretch towards," implicitly invoking the notion of a something towards which one is stretching

{Webster's, 1989, "intend"). Thus, in the phenomenological sense,

"intentionality" applies to the notion that human beings live in a world populated by things. We encounter these things (and other people) from a particular corporeal perspective, not from some generic and easily interchangeable position. Human beings do not encounter the world from an omniscient point of view. Thus, the concept of intentionality involves a realization of one's relational being the world, not to a desire to understand the conscious reasoning processes of actors in a situation. Put another way,

"meaning is 'intuited'; it is always-already relational" (Pilotta,

Com m unication 870; 17 October 1996).

Most fruitful at this point would be an explicit statement of the guiding philosophical presuppositions of this qualitative methodology, rather than a mere reaction to the incorrect presentation it suffers in Designing Social

Research. While this has been accomplished by many scholars, Lincoln and

Cuba (1985) concisely present the five axioms of the Naturalistic Paradigm, which draws on hermeneutics and phenomenology for its methodological basis: • Realities are multiple, constructed, and holistic. • Knower and known are inseparable. • Only time- and context-bound working hypotheses (idiographic statements) are possible.

67 • All entities are in a state of mutual simultaneous shaping, so that it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects. • Inquiry is value-bormd. (p. 37) As is clear from these five axioms, the methodological basis upon which this perspective rests is diametrically opposed to that of King, Keohane, and

Verba. What follows, then, is a critical analysis of several positions they take in their work. The reader will recognize the interplay of the five axioms in

the following discussion.

The most basic point with which 1 must take issue is King, Keohane, and Verba's assumption that the logic which underlies quantitative research also underlies qualitative research. Indeed, it would be more accurate to state the opposite. Before any quantification can take place, there must first be a quality to which one can then apply a number. As Pilotta has explained,

"Quantitative analysis just takes one form of measure and unifies, homogenizes things. It's only one aspect of how any thing can be understood.

Qualitative, on the other hand, is the study of signification or meaning in a situation" (Communication 671; 7 January 1998).

The confusion under which King, Keohane, and Verba are working is also made clear by the following passage: "...ah social science requires... judgments of which phenomena are 'more' or 'less' alike in degree (i.e., quantitative differences) or in kind (i.e., qualitative differences)" (p. 5). In either case, degree or kind, we are starting with a quality of a thing. Why do we count things all together in one group? Why do we exclude something

68 from the count? Because it lacks the qualities that the members of the

counted group share. If we are counting all of the dolphins in the zoo, we will

not count monkeys because they lack the qualities of dolphins (such as being

water-dwelling mammals). If we change the quality of the group we are

counting, say, to intelligent animals, then monkeys may have the requisite

quality and be counted alongside the dolphins. If we then ask "To what degree

are the dolphins more intelligent?" we are still quantifying a quality:

intelligence. Indeed, the application of the word "intelligence" itself requires a

reliance on qualities which we consider to denote intelligence. Thus, the

distinction between quantitative and qualitative is artificial, and qualities must be recognized as primary.

A second point on which I take issue with King, Keohane, and Verba is their strict definition of "empirical" as being that which is "observable," and their consequent restriction of the purview of social scientific inquiry: "Our focus here on empirical research means that we sidestep many issues in the philosophy of social science" (p. 6). They explain: The rules of inference that we discuss are not relevant to all issues that are of significance to social scientists. Many of the most important questions concerning political life—about such concepts as agency, obligation, legitimacy, citizenship, sovereignty—are philosophical rather than empirical. But the rules are relevant to all research where the goal is to leam facts about the real world, (p. 6). They go on to discuss these limitations in further detail later in their work: We should choose observable, rather than unobservable concepts whenever possible. Abstract, unobserved concepts such as utility, culture, intentions, motivations, identification, intelligence, or

69 national interest are often used in social science theories....Explanations involving concepts such as culture or national interest or utility or motivation are suspect unless we can measure the concept independently of the dependent variable that we are explaining. (pp. 109-110) There are several problems which arise when one assumes such a limited perspective. Pilotta has noted that those things which are observable are not the only important aspects of the practical, lived social world which we aU study. For example, "gods to which people pray and yet never see are still im portant" (Com munication 870; 22 October 1997).

Furthermore, according to phenomenology, there are no independent variables: Things imply their relevant context, imply other things[,] which in turn imply their contexts. The continuous impHcation of things and their context means that a particular thing implies a totality and correlatively a thing leads the subject in his/her cognition toward the cognition of totality implied by the thing and its context. (Pilotta, 1986, p . 391) King, Keohane, and Verba's real problem in addressing abstract questions of culture, for example, is that their entire paradigm, and ours too, is temporally and spatially located within a cultural complex. Inferential logic is a cultural construction, and a tiny part cannot be used to analyze the whole to which it is subordinate until it accepts and theorizes that localization, as phenomenological hermeneutics has.

From our historically-grounded perspective, we are able to address concepts, which we consider to be eminently empirical as sensual experiences

70 (avoiding a sole reliance on sight), such as identification and motivation.

(Motivation for us refers not to the psychological reasoning behind actions, but rather to the "mutual simultaneous shaping" which is an inherent characteristic of lived experience). Indeed, if we do not use social science to address the abstract concepts on which all of our theories are founded, we will never come to understand the nature of the "facts" with which King,

Keohane, and Verba are so wholly preoccupied. Before anything else, they must come to a realization that their "facts" are defined as such only by the culture which has produced their paradigm.

Beyond the issue of the cultural location of scientific inquiry as a way of knowing, the issue of logic arises in King, Keohane, and Verba's proposed

"goal of making inferences that go beyond the particular observations collected" (p. 7). Basing propositions about the unseen on the seen is not only illogical, it also brings into question the entire nature of the enterprise. To apply the structures and patterns which we have observed in one class of entities (the seen) to a qualitatively distinct class of entities (the unseen) introduces not partial uncertainty, but rather complete uncertainty. King,

Keohane, and Verba would never agree to generalizing about the voting patterns of Democrats if the data collected were based solely on a sample of

Republican voters. How then can they make the same a logical leap on an even more fundamental, philosophical level?

71 A third basic problem with King, Keohane, and Verba's plan to wed the inductive logic of quantitative studies to qualitative research is expressed in their statement, "we are ultimately interested in generalization and explanation" (p. 53). As I noted earlier, phenomenological hermeneutics resists the futile search for causality in which these authors are engaged. In addition, we recognize the detrimental effects of the data manipulation which scientific generalization requires. But let us begin with causality.

First of all, as Pilotta has noted, "explanations are modifications and interpretations of things. These historical accounts are clues as to how people see things and reciprocally how things see them" (Communication 870; 29

October 1997). Explanations, even scientific ones, are not timeless truths. The last portion of PUotta's statement additionally presents the concept of

"mutual simultaneous shaping" ("motivation" for Merleau-Ponty) which phenomenological hermeneutics accepts in contradistinction to that of causality. While we accept this interactivity of entities in the world, researchers following King, Keohane, and Verba are left chasing their tails with doubts such as, "Might we have inadvertently reversed cause and effect?" (p. 33). In fact, motivation is the very condition that has driven

Logical Positivism into stringing up the safety net of probability. Just so, it is this condition that forces King, Keohane, and Verba to elevate uncertainty to its status as their fourth cliaracteristic of "good science" (p. 8). And, as they note, control is also introduced as "an attempt to get around the fundamental

72 problem [of causal inference]" (p. 200). There are also problems inherent in

King, Keohane, and Verba's goal of formulating generalizations (an issue

which I discussed more fully in the section of this chapter which relates to the

first axiom of abject communication theory).

This brings me to the final, and most important point of my critique:

the issue of power and interest which King, Keohane, and Verba completely

ignore. This is made clear by their statement that "there is no rule for

choosing which research project to conduct, nor if we should decide to

conduct field work, are there rules governing where we should conduct it" (p.

14). Taken together with the absence of "ethics" in their index, statements

such as this one indicate that King, Keohane, and Verba are guilty of completely neglecting their responsibility to the people who help them do their research, the people who put the "social" in their science. But it is not only the subjects who are abject in this relationship. The authors abjectify themselves and their followers in the face of the discipline when they pronounce: From the perspective of a potential contribution to social science, personal reasons are neither necessary nor sufficient justifications for the choice of a topic....To put it most directly but quite indelicately, no one cares what we think—the scholarly community only cares what we can demonstrate, (p. 15) King, Keohane, and Verba, like most social scientists, want to strip both the researched and the researcher of their humanity in the face of "the scholarly

73 community." And yet, such a position does not take into account the fact that what is demonstrable is necessarily predetermined by what is thinkable.

In addition. King, Keohane, and Verba turn a blind eye to the reality that all scientific inquiry is interested. Citing Jürgen Habermas, Pilotta has noted that the researcher must articulate his or her interests: epistemological, material, and instrumental (Communication 870; 7 November 1996). The primacy of instrumental interest in scientific inquiry has been illustrated in discussions of its contribution to methods of social control which inherently preserve the status quo, and this explains the importance of finding causes as the "key[s] to prediction and control" (Lincoln and Cuba, 1985, p. 129). As these authors reahze, knowledge of causes is tantamount to power. This fact may help us to understand why pohtical figures have been willing to support scientific research in the hope that such inquiry will produce information that can be used to good political effect, (p. 129) Social science, with its white coat stained by such ethical messes as Project

Camelot, can no longer afford to pretend to be naïve or neutral. One would think that political scientists, of all scholars, would realize how their research can be—and is—used to serve political, power-oriented goals.

74 CHAPTERS

PHENOMENOLOGY IN THE FIELD

Introduction: A Phenomenological Framework for Fieldwork as Method

In conducting this study, I have utilized twelve concepts that are salient to phenomenological field research in communication. These include: situation, time, space, orientation, selectivity, significance, relevance, theme, context, the sensuous universal, social validity, and history. Intricately interrelated, these twelve discrete analytic categories provide a method of asking—and thus answering—the questions that are important to phenomenological social science. They provide the basis for explaining the nature of other important concepts, such as communication, communicative competence, culture, and methodology. Many of these concepts travel under the same cover as other notions do. That is, these words are often used by scholars of other fields to denote other concepts. In addition, they all have average, everyday meanings in common parlance. However, here they carry specific meanings which do not always match up precisely with either their common denotations or the definitions which have been applied in other disciplines, including anthropology and folklore.

75 Conducted under the rubric of the twelve concepts, a comparison of

two classic ethnographies, Bronislaw Malinowski's Argonauts of the

Western Pacific (1932) and Zora Neale H urston's Mules and Men (1935/

1990), Ccin function to illustrate what fieldwork has meant in the past, thus

setting in relief the modifications to the method which occur when it is

approached from a phenomenologically-informed communication

orientation. Both Malinoivski's and Hurston's names are important in the

history of anthropological and folkloric fieldwork, and in some respects, the

two can be seen as representing opposing theoretical and practical poles. Their

widely divergent theoretical frameworks and, only partly as a consequence,

the differing practical modes of research in which these two ethnographers engaged have led to the production of texts which are so different that, until

recently, many scholars refused to classify Hurston's work as an

"ethnography" at all.

While Malinowski enjoyed fame—albeit tainted by the posthumous publication of his diary—as a pioneering figure in the move towards fieldwork as the unequivocal basis for anthropological knowledge, Hurston has been marginalized as a mere fiction writer or, worse yet, as a scholar lacking integrity (Rampersad, 1990, p. xxiii). Fortunately, the tables have turned with the anti-scientific shift towards critical ethnographic work, and Hurston has come to be appreciated for her own innovative contributions to the enterprise

76 of writing culture, hailed by folklorists as a fine example of what creativity and a sense of identification with the researched community can produce.^

Working from the fieldwork experiences of the authors as manifested in their texts, we can come to understand some of the theoretical premises on which their practical work was founded. A fruitful way of going about this is to examine what the word "fieldwork" literally means for Malinowski and

Hurston. Breaking the word down, the first question would then be about the situations to which "field" refers.

Field

First, it is importcint to note that "field" holds a particular meaning for phenomenology. As Merleau-Ponty (1962) explains,"Experience of phenomena... is the making explicit or bringing to light of the pre-scientific life of consciousness which alone endows scientific operations with meaning and to which these latter always refer back. It is not an irrational conversion, but cm intentional analysis" (pp. 58-59). The human's experience of phenomena takes place in the phenomenal field, which is not "an 'irmer world', the 'phenomenon' is not a 'state of consciousness', or a 'mental fact', and the experience of phenomena is not an act of introspection or an intuition..." (p. 57). Rather, the phenomenal field is the life-world, the world

^ Hernandez (1995) points out Hurston's unmasking of the "asymmetrical relationships that exist between researchers and the communities they study" (p. 151). Hurston realized the perspectival nature of the life-world: "There is no single face in nature because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle" (Hurston qtd. in Hernandez, p. 156).

77 in which we live and in which we experience both things and other beings. In contradistinction to other critical philosophies, phenomenology does not

tacitly assume that "the philosopher's thinking is not conditioned by any situation" (p. 61). Phenomenological social science realizes and accepts that

the philosopher (or researcher) inhabits a world and was culturally and socially conditioned to experience and interpret that world in ways common

to human beings. A critical understanding of that world and those processes is a necessary prerequisite to engaging in the study of communicative acts.

The twelve concepts minimally provide the framework from which one can work towards such an understanding.

The situation is a location or a here and now point. In essence, every time we start anything, including a research project or an interview conducted within that research process, we start from somewhere: a here and now (Pilotta, 1983, pp. 45-46). That is both a spatial and a temporal location.

The temporal aspect of this opens up the twin situation of a past and future.

A situation by definition has an orientation towards something else; it leads us to a place and time beyond itself. No situation is unto itself, but rather implicates a "more than this"—that which lies beyond the present situation.

That now point resides in, is situated on the horizon where the past and future meet. While I will more fully discuss the past in relation to history, the future essentially comprises the history of one's expectations or anticipations (Pilotta, 1983, p. 51). The future can be resignified by the

78 changing relevancies of the experiential domain. What was once irrelevant can become relevant later, and indeed, that relevance can continue to change or shift further.

As human beings, our most primary situation is that of our bodies, which in turn is situated in a world defined by limitations, as well as opened up through possibilities. This world is populated by things, the objects that make up our world. To come to an understanding of this, readers might ask themselves if they have ever been outside of their bodies. Have they ever greeted another person in the street without using mouth to speak or hand to salute, seen a shooting star in the night sky without using eye to see? No, we are our bodies, they are we, they are our situation.

And yet, we must forget this very basic situation in order to perform the very acts that make up our experience of the world. One may experience this necessity when one plays a musical instrument. One must forget the mechanical workings of the fingers, the regulation of the breathing, in order to continue playing unfalteringly. Another example of this could be found in the experience of climbing a cliff face. As long as one is engaged non- reflectively in the task, all is well. The voice in the back of one's head which whispers, "Don't look down," warns the climber against reflection upon the situation. For, if the danger is great enough, upon reflection, the climber will falter, legs and arms frozen. One can also experience the faltering in speech, particularly when one is speaking a newly learned language. Once one has stopped consciously translating—reflecting, guessing at the "correct" word—

79 and rather just uses the correct word, that is where fluency is found. In fact, the body most often comes to one's consciousness when it is not working properly or normally.

VVe tie culture to the experiential domain (see social validity below) through corporeity (i.e. body, situation). Cultural studies are studies of corporeity, situation, body. Corporeity is "what is more than"; it allows us to see differences and thus similarities. It is the body which makes history visible. It manifests time/ space/ movement relationships (e.g., gesture).

Body, time, and space are the nexus of the foundations for communication

(Pilotta & McCaughan, forthcoming). As Pilotta notes (1983), "Relating to a situation, as well as defining it, means to understand the situation, which in turn requires self-understanding which is the definitional quality of any social situation. In short, the way a person defines his or her own existence will determine the meaning of any social setting" (p. 45). (I will return to meaning in my discussion of the term significance.)

Time is a dimension which makes experience possible, and which is not reducible to any specific set of circumstances. Temporality implicates both past and future. There are degrees of past and future. There can be the far past and the far future, as there can be a near past and a near future. In fact, one can put something so far into the future (by postponing it), that it becomes

"no more"—the conditions for the possibility of it recede—and it becomes the far or distant past. There are time/space modalities of situations and contexts

(Pilotta, 1983, pp. 51-52).

80 Space is the non-temporal "here." As an experiential domain, its

"here" directly implies a "there" (Natanson, 1970, pp. 30-31). The spatial is direction-oriented and forms part of a horizon (the limit of what can be done) in conjunction with the temporal. These horizons can shrink and expand, both temporally and spatially. They are not fixed, and all expectations have limits placed upon them through these spatial and temporal modalities

(Gadamer, 1994, pp. 302-307).

VVhat, then, is Malinowski's field, his research situation? A thin archipelago of islands situated off New Guinea, far from his native land of

Poland. Malinowski himself paints a vivid mental picture for his reader when he asks her to "Imagine yourself suddenly set down surrounded by all your gear, alone on a tropical beach close to a native village, while the dinghy or launch that brought you sails away out of sight" (1932, p. 4). On the whole, this image is striking, but the words Malinowski chooses for his description are interesting avenues into understanding his own situation upon arrival at his site. For Malinowski, the removal from familiar surroundings is

"sudden" and it is irrevocable...the launch has sailed out of view. He is

"alone" despite the close presence of a village. For Malinowski, the field is diametrically opposed to "home," a place where he is familiar with the climate, food, customs, and perhaps most importantly, the language of his interlocutors.

81 For Hurston, too, the field is a “native village" (p. 2). But in contrast to

Malinowski, this village is Hurston's own native village, and she understands and presents her arrival tliere as a homecoming, neither sudden nor tinged with feelings of loneliness. Hurston prepares her reader for the visit by relating the thoughts and feelings she had as she drives towards the town. When she arrives, she is greeted by name and as "heart-string" (p. 7).

She relates her o'v\m greetings to her old neighbors in the dialect which she was raised speaking, rather them in the standardized grammar and spelling that she uses in the narrative frame around the homecoming story. In this way, she illustrates her familiarity with the culture and the manner of speaking appropriate there: '"Hello, boys,' I hailed them as I went into neutral....'...Ah come to collect some old stories and tales and Ah know y'aU know plenty of 'em" (pp. 7-8). Hurston repeats this orthographic maneuver throughout the rest of the book.

This essential difference between the fields from which Malinowski and Hurston chose to reap the first fruits of ethnographic research can be seen as the essential difference between studying "the other" and studying one's own culture. But in reality, this difference is mitigated by three factors. The first of these actually presents a similarity in the method of the two ethnographers. Neither one of them remained in the first "village" they came to. Malinowski travelled throughout the archipelago as he studied the kula ring and other aspects of the varying island cultures. Hurston, for her part,

82 presents research she conducted in neighboring towns, a saw-mill camp to which she was a first-time visitor, and in the later half of her book, the New

Orleans world of Hoo Doo into which she was only gradually accepted. In these forays, she was forced to deal with many of the problems of the outsider which also challenged Malinowski.

The second factor which mitigates the difference in the meaning of

"field" for the two writers involves their orientation. Orientation has been called the site of truth. In effect, it is in the posture or comportment one takes towards the target, as in archery. Pilotta has suggested the metaphor of "truing the arrow" as a means of indicating the nature of this concept as aiming or assuming the correct posture towards the object (Communication 673;

January 1999). As in the metaphor, orientation is spatial in quality, as it relates to direction. Orientation is a way of doing things, a way of approaching things, a point of view from which we see things. It can be regarded as a set of expectations. In the case of research processes such as interviewing or textual analysis, the orientation provides a basis for decisions as to what counts as

"relevant data" (Pilotta, 1983, p. 50).

Orientation also involves the concept of intentionality, which allows for the destruction of the subject/object dichotomy (as discussed in chapter 2).

All intentionality is oriented. Intentionality is the true effacing of the body in favor of a thing; i.e., to pick up a glass, we must efface the body in favor of the way the glass is, change tlie shape of the hand to grasp the glass, reach the arm

83 out. Intentionality is a phenomenological code word for concepts which show

up in other disciplines with other words attached. It is the "intersubjectivity"

of philosophy, the "social" of sociology, and the "relational" of

communication. Intentionality is the condition for the possibility of saying

that communication is relational. Intersubjectivity is the third point between

the "you" and the "me" in communication: the "it" that we share in

common and which transforms the "you" and the "me" into a "we." This "it" presupposes interobjectivity, providing the bridge between two people

(Schütz, 1964). The "it" relates to what Merleau-Ponty calls "motives" in the sense of motivation (1962, p. 50). Lincoln and Guba (1985) refer to this as

"mutual simultaneous shaping" (pp. 150-157). Motives lie outside of one, originating from a correlated structure outside of one. This shows up particularly clearly in emotions. One is never just angry; one is always angry at something. We are never just fascinated; we are fascinated by something.

Hurston's understanding of the training that she received in the universities "up North" illustrates her orientation. It is the "spy-glass of

Anthropology" which enables her to see the culture which "was fitting [her] like a tight chemise" (p. 1). Because of it, she feels endowed with a greater insight into the cultural value of the folklore of Eatonville than are the porch-sitters of the town. Malinowski also exhibits his belief in his having a greater understanding of the native institutions than do his individual informants because of his anthropological training. He claims that, upon

84 realizing the characteristic lack of "intelligent members" in native societies, an ethnographer must unavoidably come to rely upon "collecting concrete data of evidence and drawing the general inferences for himself" (1932, p. 12).

This second factor is tied to the question of objectivity that will be taken up in a later discussion of some theoretical similarities between the two works.

The third mitigating factor which leads to greater similarity between

Malinowski's and Hurston's fields seems almost contradictory to the second point, but it really is not. In fact, this, too, is an issue of orientation: the self­ presentation of the ethnographer as an initiate. Malinowski could not help but be a cultural novice in the villages which he studied. He describes his inquiries as "thrust[ing his] nose into everything, even where a well- mannered native would not dream of intruding, they finished by regarding

[him] as part and parcel of their life, a necessary evil or nuisance, mitigated by donations of tobacco" (1932, p. 8). Hurston, too, represents herself as an uninformed investigator throughout her work, asking questions about cultural events and the meanings of words which surprise not only her readers, but her interlocutors as well. An example of this can be found in the section on the toe-party. "'Say, what is this toe-party business?' I asked one of the girls. "'Good gracious, Zora! Ain't you never been to a toe-party before?"'

(p. 14). Hurston then goes on to allow the girl to directly describe the party to the readers in her own words.

85 Work

The second half of the word "fieldwork" leads us to a discussion of the divergent methods which Malinowski and Hurston used in the collection of the material that became the bases for their ethnographies. These include selection strategies which involve judgments of significance and relevance.

Selections are made by people. They select that which is relevant.

Subjectivity is a selection and mediation process. In fact, communication is comprised of these three parts: selection, mediation (i.e., history), and intersubjectivity (i.e., orientation). Actually, communication is a selectivity.

It happens when I select something that concurs to a degree with what you select as relevant (Pilotta, 1983, pp. 55-56). That something is intentionality

(see Orientation above). If our selections do not concur, communicative incompetence occurs. How selectivity and mediation work together is the site of methodological questions. Methodology is the justification for the selection of relevancies.

Significance, along with relevance, is a first principle for methodological rigor (Natanson, 1970). Something can be significant and yet be irrelevant to a situation. Taken together with that which is relevant to a situation, significance leads us to the understanding of what matters, or materiality. A significant thing has three qualities: 1. it matters, 2. it has value, and 3. it is selected. "Significance" is equal to the conditions for the possibility of opening up time/space horizons and answering the question "How do

86 people find their worlds meaningful?" Qualitative methodology is the study of significance or meaning in a situation. Significance gives us a direction or an orientation.

Relevance is a selectivity issue. Relevance shares with significance a history comprised of "all that matters" (Natanson, 1970, p. 99). Something can be relevant but not significant in a particular situation. Relevance is a methodological issue which phenomenologists, including Schütz (1964), have employed as a "standard for guiding the selection of strategies for eliciting information and for creating favorable implementation conditions"

(Pilotta, et al, forthcoming, p. 68). The relevance of a situation or a theme shifts with time. We look at language/ meaning (i.e., claims) in terms of relevance and significance. Together, these are the first principles in methodological rigor (Pilotta, 1983, pp. 57-58). Dialogues m ust deal with relevant matters, otherwise they are just chat. A mutual system of relevancies is essential to a research enterprise. If participants in the process disagree on the relevance, the research process will fail (Pilotta, 1983, p. 60).

Themes are relevant. They also function in tandem with significance to expand context. They are resident in over-lapping topics, as well as in the recurrence of metaphors over time. While they are stable, they are not necessarily unchanging. They also reside in what is consistently not said or not done (i.e., the taboo). Sometimes themes become visible through the incongruencies between speech and actions (i.e., falsehoods). The emergence of themes, which requires certain kinds of dialogue between the researcher

87 and research participants, functions to guide and sustain a research project and enables the development of research and interview questions. These can emerge through the processes of sorting through notes, talking to colleagues, and other research practices. If themes are obvious, there is really no reason to do research. Research is an attempt to access the non-transparent, the opaque.

The significance of themes is evaluated in terms of social validity and the related process of "triangulation." However, themes need not be universally accepted in the community to achieve social validity (Pilotta, et al, forthcoming, pp. 70-71).

The meaning of "work" shows up clearly and frequently in both

Argonauts of the Western Pacific and in Malinowski's private diaries.

According to him, there are three principles of method: 1) the possession of

"real scientific aims" and a knowledge of the "values and criteria of modem ethnography"; 2) habitation "right among the natives"; and 3) the application of "special methods of collecting, manipulating and fixing... [the] evidence"

(1932, p. 6). This third category really encompasses the type of work which

Malinowski presents himself most frequently as doing. This includes the making up of charts and "synoptic tables" (1932, p. 15), as well as what appears to be an almost constant engagement in note-taking and photography. The sheer amount of written material which Malinowski produced—the notes which formed the fodder for several weighty monographs, two diaries.

88 voluminous personal and business correspondence—lends veracity to an image of Malinowski with pencil and notebook perpetually in hand.

On the other hand, writing materials seem almost conspicuously absent from Hurston's work. There are no explicit theoretical discussions about method as there are in Malinowski's text. Indeed, we never catch a glimpse of Hurston transcribing (or recording) the folktales, jokes, and songs which she hears in such natural settings as fishing outings and bars. Instead, the reader is transparently transported into the setting itself, told the tales as

Zora is told them. The reader's awareness of such a gap is intensified by

Hurston's discussion of laws against murder. "Negro women are punished in these parts for killing men, but only if they exceed the quota. I don't remember what the quota is. Perhaps I did hear but I forgot" (p. 60). Another instcince of the gap is her description of Babe Brown, Georgia Burke and

George Thomas's song about Polk County which they sing after the toe-party breaks up: My heart struck sorrow, tears come running down. At about the thirty-seventh verse, something about: Ah'd ruther be in Tampa with the Whip-poor-will, Ruther be in Tampa with the Whip-poor-will Than to be 'round here— Honey with a hundred dollar bill, I staggered sleepily forth to the little Chevrolet for Eaton ville.... (p. 17)

89 This is hardly a passage of which Malinowski would approve, its fragmentary nature most likely offensive to his aesthetic and scientific need for the totality, for the whole (1932, pp. xvi, 11).

And yet, though we do not see Hurston working with paper and pencil, upon examining Hurston's text, we get a picture of her as much more highly involved in what Malinowski terms "the imponderabilia of actual life" including "the tone of conversational and social life around the village fires, the existence of strong friendships or hostilities" (1932, pp. 18-19). That imponderabilia could be called "context."

As Pilotta and Mickunas (1990) explain, context helps us deal with the transcendental. That is, it answers the question: "What are the conditions for the possibility of this experience?" It is ongoing, successive. Context can be said to be a field of meaningful (significant) relational acts which are organized in a particular way (pp. 102-104). An example of this would be a class which meets every week. The ten weekly meetings of the class are located temporally and spatially, and are related to each other, forming one context. Or, the several research trips I have made to Isla Mujeres and the relational acts (both linguistic and behavioral) implicated in those successive trips form together one context. They are not episodes in the sense of separated, isolated occurrences in time. At least one significant thread runs through all of them, linking them. Contexts are not flat; they can be layered— of varying thicknesses. Context is organized by significance and theme (Pilotta

90 & M ickunas, 1990, p. 102). These themes (which are validated socially) help to grow the context, making it broaden and expand. These themes contribute to the layering of the context.

This context, the imponderabilia, Malinowski argues, "can and ought to be scientifically formulated and recorded...with an effort at penetrating the mental attitude expressed in them" (1932, p. 18). Despite this avow ed emphasis, one is left with the sense that perhaps Malinowski never got close enough to this imponderabilia...that his attachment to pencil and paper and scientific formulation kept him separated from it. Interesting is Malinowski's admonition to the future fieldworker that he "sometimes...put aside camera, note book emd pencil, and to join in himself in what is going on" (1932, p. 21).

Indeed, this appears to be Hurston's main method, essentially that which we call "participant observation." Truly, every time we see Zora sitting on a riverbank listening to stories, singing John Henry at parties—and even when her life is being threatened in a knife-fight—she is working, penetrating the imponderabilia in a way open only to an ethnographer who has really come to be accepted by her informants "as part and parcel of their life." In order to be accepted in that way, an ethnographer must reflexively regard the community as part and parcel of her own life, an orientation which

Malinowski's diaries lead me to believe he did not possess. His own constant companions, the notebook and pencil, operated as a barrier to such a communion. And commrmion in life, the building of shared experience

91 between human beings, is neither experienced first hand as scientific nor is it

fully communicable through scientific structure and language. The assumed

detachment required by positivistic social science effectively precludes that.

The sensuous universal is a concept that has also travelled under the

name "the libidinal" (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977; Lingis, 1983). Having its

basis in Marx's "Theses on Feuerbach" (1978), the sensuous universal has

received little attention. "The sensuous universal concretizes the notion of

intersubjectivity or the social. At the social level, the sensuous universal

anchors or roots the concept of habituality—as an assurance or attunement to

a situation, thing, or task—prior to any form of assumptions. The

requirements of the sensuous universal are the means for the explication of

what a critical sensuous science can look like" (Pilotta & McCaughan,

forthcoming, pp. 33-34). In fact, the sensuous universal is the analytic category

which truly opens up the possibility of understanding particular issues related

to the political economy of Isla Mujeres (see chapter 4) because "the

particulars of hrunan praxis are tied to corporeal history which establishes

humanity as the sensuous universal. The sensuous universal underlies human interaction at the empirical and generalized levels of human

interaction" (p. 34).

Social validity is located within the experiential domain, the domain of validity. It is as opposed to statistical validity because corporeity is not quantifiable. It connotes that by which people operate (and is thus closely

92 linked to the sensuous universal), even though that which is socially significant may not be "statistically true" (i.e., it may or may not intersect with that which is statistically significant). An example of this could be seen in the false stereotyping of groups of people. Social validity is the articulation of the truth of a situation as it relates to the truth of the research. It is a process of recognition.

The manner in which social validity is achieved is through being social

(i.e., interacting with others) and by developing themes that can be ratified (or conversely, rejected) by the community in which one is engaged. Social validity is measured through linguistic acknowledgment as well as behavioral acknowledgment—actions which demonstrate that those themes are important (Pilotta, et al, forthcoming, pp. 75-76). The use of various other materials (aside from personal interaction), such as texts produced by the society, can function to disconfirm or ratify the themes. This is the process of triangulation, and it is the process by which social validity is tested.

Theory

What led to such very different and yet strangely convergent manifestations of fieldwork in the works of Malinowski and Hurston? To answer that question fully is beyond the scope of this exposition, requiring personal and historical insights that will never be available. However, one can be certain that the theoretical foundations of the two authors play a large role in this complex. Although a tempting exit from this situation would be

93 to pronounce that Malinowski was "scientific" in his theory and Hurston was not, citing as evidence their various approaches to magical elements of the cultures for example, such a statement would not only prove to be far too simplistic, it would also prove to be incorrect.

Malinowski, trained first as a physical scientist, is credited with tying ethnographic research more closely than it had been to the scientific paradigm through his advocacy of empirical observation as the basis for generalizations.

Likewise, Franz Boas, Hurston's mentor, was also trained as a physical scientist, and he advocated a scientific approach to the study of cultures, training his students to think in a scientific manner. In fact, when one examines the reasoning behind Malinowski's and Hurston's choice of fields, the more scientific of the two may appear to be Hurston.

As N atanson (1970, pp. 88-107) has noted, history can be seen as the strands of possibilities which open up certain avenues. It is not fixed but is rather a selective and creative process. It is another word for mediation; to talk of mediation is to talk of history. It agitates the present. It helps us answer

"How did things come to be the way they are? It is the experience of the past.

A history can be that of a person, of a group (society), of an institution, or of a culture. In addition, these can all be resignified depending on the present situation and the orientation which one takes. Institutional change, for example, occurs through the resignification (re-valuation) of the past, which leads to the resignification of the future.

94 Malinowski never actually reveals in Argonauts of the Western

Pacific the reasons why he chose to make the Trobriand Islands his field for six years, but his biographers indicate that the choice really was not his to make. Thwarted in his attempts to do fieldwork in Africa by global events,

Malinowski followed Seligman's lead to New Guinea. Clifford, for one, points to the world war as the impetus for this choice. Malinow^ski apparently had no great interest in New Guinea; the islands presented themselves—non- scientifically—as the path of least resistance.

Hurston, on the other hand, is very clear in providing three rationales for her choice of field: one scientific and two practical. First, Hurston recounts having told Franz Boas that she wanted to go to Florida as a general area because it '"is a place that draws people from all over the world, and Negroes from every Southern state surely and some from the North and West,"' enabling her to "get a cross section of the Negro South" (p. 1). This reasoning resonates with the statistician's insistence on representative sampling techniques. It also gives us a link to Malinowski in its consideration of the totality, the desire to represent the whole. That totalizing goal, incidentally, does not disappear from the text after page one. Although Hurston does not call explicit attention to what she is doing, she actually presents in Mules and

M en, most if not all of the major genres recognized by the folklorists of her time, including animal tales, legends, ballads, work songs, festivals, rituals, and children's games.

95 Hurston adds two more practical reasons for her general choice of field-

-Florida—stating that she was a beginner in this type of work and "it looked sensible for [her] to choose familiar ground" (p. 1). As far as the specific designation of locale was concerned, she chose her "native village" because she could collect a good deal of folklore there "without hurt, harm or danger"

(p. 2). Finally, her third reason for choosing her own culture was also practical and surely does seem to have played a role in the closeness to her object of study that she was able to achieve. As she explains, her status as an African

American woman from that region of the country enabled her to circumvent to a great extent the tactic of "hedt and switch" that she anticipated she would nevertheless have to surmount at one point or another: "We smile and tell him or her something that satisfies the white person because, knowing so little about us, he doesn't know what he's missing" (p. 2).

A second point in the comparison of Malinowski's and Hurston's theoretical foundations lies in their shared belief in the ethnographer's ability to be objective, achieved through scientific method and through distance.

Malinowski's text is replete with examples of this firmly-held tenet, but one particularly lends itself to comparison with a statement by Hurston. In his attempt to define the kula, Malinowski explains the inability of any

Trobriander to define it, claiming, "the integral picture does not exist in his

[the Trobriander's] mind; he is in it, and cannot see the whole from the outside. The integration of all the details observed...is the task of the

Ethnographer " which is achieved through the use of scientific method.

96 necessary "in order not to lose the right perspective of conditions as they really exist among the natives" (1932, pp. 83-84). This passage recalls H urston's metaphor of her culture as a tight-fitting chemise, presenting as entirely possible an ability to "see [her]self like somebody else and stand off and look at

[her] garment" (p. 1).

While both Malinowski and Hurston subscribed to the scientific model of "objectively" viewing the world, both also felt the inexorable pull of very non-scientific, very subjective emotions. Indeed, this assumed objectivity could be blamed for some of the greatest pain that they expressed having felt during their fieldwork. Malinowski only briefly mentions in Argonauts of the Western Pacific the periods of despondency and novel-reading which appear to his diary-readers as having been much more crippling than his monograph makes them seem (1932, p. 4). Indeed, the diary dwells at length on the subjective feelings of sexual desire that paralyzed him as he lay under his mosquito netting. It may be that his stress on an inhuman objectivity in his work lent a strength and depth to these desires that they may not have had if he had allowed himself a more subjective position in his work and life.

Hurston, rather than wrestling with this question in her solitary room, experiences the impossibility of the subject/object dichotomy as thrust upon her by those from whom she believed she could distance herself. Accused by women of the saw-mill camp of going after their men, Hurston's work there is effectively put to an end as she flees from the camp in the midst of a

97 w om an's attem pt to m urder her (pp. 178-179). Again, this assum ed objectivity causes Hurston pain in the second half of the book, when she recounts how she felt compelled to leave a "two-headed doctor" who had taken her in as a student. "He wanted me to stay with him to the end. It has been a great sorrow to me that I could not say yes" (p. 205).

Despite their totalizing enterprises and their commitments to objectivity, neither Malinowski nor Hurston was able to attain these impossible goals. Malinowski never succeeded in finishing the planned monograph which was to describe the entire social life of the Trobhanders.

Indeed, the mid-1960s scandal precipitated by the publication of his private diaries is testimony to the fact that he protected his scientific reputation precisely by not telling—in his published works—the "whole story" of his island experience. On the other hand, as Dorst (1987) has illustrated in his prescient rereading of her text, Hurston's objective stance falls apart in the body of the work itself: "the erotic code operates in several planes of the text, and...these planes begin to overlap and merge. The symbolic world within the folklore itself, the social world of the performers, and the detatched world of the fieldworker/observer begin to intersect" (p. 310). While such an intertextual movement has been criticized by some scholars, perhaps the success of her work is dependent in some measure on just that. After all, a reader of Hurston's text may well put it down with a sense of having spent some time with, and having come to know somewhat, the author, her

98 friends, and her enemies in Florida, whereas it is difficult to say the same for

Malinowski's volume. It seems to me that such a sensation is something that ethnography should aspire to.

Rehabilitation Strategies in Method

Perhaps the most rhetorically savvy method of discussing strategies for rehabilitating ethnography in terms of abject communication theory would be to address each of Lingis's axioms in turn, suggesting particular ways of counteracting abjection on each point. Yet, the salience of the twelve concepts just discussed adds to the complexity of such an endeavor. In addition, such an organization would tend towards redundancy, particularly since the discussions of some abject communication axioms inherently imply the steps which a researcher can take in order to avoid particular practices, such as negating the author's presence in the text, or over-generalizing from specifics.

Additionally, such a point-by-point discussion would inevitably become cumbersome due to the strong inter-relationship between many of the axioms. Such a presentation would be further complicated by explanations of particular strategies which serve to neutralize several abject tendencies at once. Indeed, the holistic nature of abject communication theory as related to phenomenological social science emerges more clearly when one considers the development of a research program designed to minimize abjection.

99 The process of combatting abjection is thus revealed as not being the

application of "rules" or a "recipe," but rather as being an orientation towards

doing research which has a specific justification founded on the seven

axioms. Consequently, I will follow the temporal structure of doing social scientific research in this section of this essay. Thus, I group strategies

according to the broadly defined and generally accepted stages of social scientific research: 1) Research Design; 2) Data Gathering; 3) Data Analysis;

and 4) Publication of Results. What should be kept in mind is that these four stages are often recursively linked. For example, periods of data collection and data analysis frequently intermix, and occasionally, a discovery in collection leads to the revision of the research design, new research avenues opening up based on newly gathered information.

1. Research Design

The research design stage, or the original conceptualization of the project, includes decisions about who will be involved in the study and what communication processes will be addressed. These are necessarily not decisions which can be made solely by the researcher. From the very beginning, the researcher must not consider the people involved in the study as "subjects" but rather as "co-participants" or "co-laborers" (colaboradores).

In other words, "Communities cannot and ought not to be viewed as an undistinguished cohort" (Pilotta, et al., forthcoming, n.p.). This requires a

100 research orientation of cooperation rather than domination. Such a stipulation precludes the use of research populations who are directly subject to the power of the researcher. Consequently, anti-abject research cannot engage in the widespread practice of using college student populations who are "susceptible to research participation enticements" such as extra credit

(Pilotta, 1993, p. 355). This limits research programs to those communities which express an openness towards participation in a research program. Such an openness carmot be expected to materialize spontaneously, but rather can only be expected to emerge over a period of time of interaction between the community and the researcher.

Over this period of time, the co-participants in the future study can develop a degree of mutual understanding and trust. It is essential that, in this pre-study stage of interaction, the researcher come to "understand the specific logic of how a community views itself, ... achieve communicative competence in terms of the community[,] and understand the meaning of the activities that lend order to its life" (Pilotta, et al., forthcoming, n.p.). In this period of time, the conceptualization of the parts—both social and research- oriented—that the researcher can play in the community will become more clear, and the research questions to be addressed can come to be negotiated between the community and the researcher.

This negotiation of research questions, rather than the imposition of them by a previously uninvolved researcher, is also a strategy for minimizing

101 abjection. The recognition of a need for community-based programs in public sector folklore is illustrated by Belanus's (1994) comment that "Many projects

I worked on... imposed a structure created by public sector folklorists and agency administrators on a community, with little recognition of what that community may have been more interested in receiving from such a project"

(p. 212). An orientation towards the communities' expressed goals is essentially an aspect of putting the "social" back into social science.

It is for this reason that my own research project involves tourism on

Isla Mujeres. A study of tourism is justified by my concern with coming to knowledge which will benefit both the academic community and the co­ participants in the study. Tourism, as many authors have noted, is currently a topic of considerable academic interest because of the economic, political, geographic, social, and cultural implications associated with the temporal and spatial dislocations and modifications associated with the semi-structured movement of massive numbers of people. However, I do not assume that research on the specific, temporally and spatially located situation of Isla

Mujeres will contribute to a one-to-one understanding of any other touristically-oriented community. Conversely, the findings of studies already conducted in other times and locations cannot be assumed as applying (in entirety or perhaps at all) to Isla Mujeres. Valene Smith (1977) has recognized how such a refusal to generalize is important in tourism studies in particular.

102 stating in her study of "Eskimo tourism" that "micro-models rather than generalized examples may be the primary data source from which a theory of tourism can be developed" (p. 68).

On the other hand, in a community which relies on tourism for approximately 95% of its economic base, both government officials and the inhabitants of Isla Mujeres have expressed to me a desire to manage tourism in such a way as to benefit themselves and their home. Truly, the success or failure of a tourist season affects almost everyone on this island, as does the general trend towards a greater economic reliance on increasing the influx of tourists (or tourist dollars) as each year passes.

With such a negotiated basis for my research questions, I am not in a position to determine whether the future should include greater development, leading perhaps to the replication of a glitzy, "Americanized"

Cancun, or the protection and augmentation of Isla Mujeres's identity as a safe, sleepy tropical haven, or some kind of combination of the two.

Although I care about the people of Isla Mujeres and want to cooperate with them in a manner beneficial to all of us, Isla Mujeres is not my home, and I cannot decide what is best for the people whose home it is. Keeping such thoughts in mind helps to heighten a sense of responsibility and sensitivity to the community's self-expressed goals. The policy implications of the research

103 findings will require presentation to the islanders, and discussions involving representatives from all sectors of the community must precede any action- oriented decision making.

2. Data Gathering

For communication studies which engage the experiential domain (as opposed to rhetorical analyses which engage only texts), the widely accepted method for data gathering has been the tape-recorded interview or focus group session which is later transcribed, analyzed, and excerpted for publication. Participant observation, usually emphasizing the observational aspect over the participatory aspect of this method, has also been relied upon widely. In contradistinction to the common practices, I advocate more participatory, dialogic versions of these methods. Rather than considering these practices as mere methods for acquiring information, researchers must consider them as occasions of relationship-building, as the social and inter- cultural contacts which they inherently are. The addition of non- linguistically-based data-gathering techniques (which do not rely so wholly on the transference of knowledge through symbol systems) also works to counteract abjection. Finally, flexibility in method selection and use must characterize the researcher's orientation. Not every method is germane to every situation.^

^ This point is exemplified by the situation in which Lather & Smithies (1997) found themselves. The qualifying characteristic for inclusion in their ethnographic group—women

104 First of all, anti-abject interviewing practices must be dialogic in nature.

This precludes the practice of a researcher coming to the table with an attitude of "I have all the questions"—which directly implies that "I have all the answers"—(Pilotta, 1983). Therefore, the researcher ought not have a pre­ determined interview schedule whicli she or he follows precisely point by point. Rather, interviews must take on a conversational tone, with the researcher being equally willing to respond to questions posed by her/his interlocutors. In fact, many of my video-taped interviews include substantial portions where the camera has been turned upon me, and I have been

"subjected" to an impromptu interview. Honesty and genuine interest must be present in interactions as well. This precludes any notion of "hiding" the actual research intent from co-participants as a means of "getting to a hidden truth" which they might otherwise "lie" about. To take such an approach approximates the rat-exploiting cheese-maze research in which some psychologists and other social scientists engage. In other words, we must treat our interlocutors as thinking, feeling, intelligent human beings who possess decision-making and interpretation capabilities. diagnosed with HTV or AIDS—truly affected the methods that the researchers could and could not use. For example, they were unable to use video, which arguably leads to a considerable loss of data. At the same time, the use of audiotape opened up for the possibility of gathering more data in that more people may have been willing to participate in recording sessions. The significance of this is illustrated by the comment of one woman who only came to a support group after the writing portion was over. She said that she wished her story had been told in the book, but she hadn't gone in the beginning, when the recording was done, because she had thought it would be videotaped.

105 In regard to participant observation, as ethnomethodologists have realized, the being of the researcher in the interactional setting must be recognized and theorized upon. The mutual simultaneous shaping which occurs constantly in the experiential domain must be realized as characterizing the research situation as well. Thus, the researcher must be aware that her participation in the community, as a whole and on specific occasions, indelibly colors and modifies those situations, just as those situations work upon and modify her. Such an orientation relates to the axiom of abject communication theory regarding the depersonalization of the researcher. These and other modifications of participant observation and interviewing techniques carry implications for the data-analysis and publication stages to which I will return later in this chapter.

As other social scientists have realized to some degree, data-gathering

(and analysis) techniques can be facilitated by the use of some of the newer communication technologies. Although I do not blindly accept technology as a magical cure-all for the ills of social scientific research, I do advocate the careful use of tools which are germane to a given research situation and which can lead to a greater understanding of the communication processes involved in the area of study. While imaging technologies have been employed in ethnographic presentations since perhaps the birth of ethnography itself, the advancements in technology—from slow, skill- determined engraving methods to cheap, point-and-shoot disposable cameras

106 and high-tech, user-friendly video cameras—should not be overlooked as means to achieving multi-perspectival, anti-abject ethnographic research goals.

For example, I am currently experimenting with a data-gathering technique of distributing disposable cameras (with developing fees and postage) and asking community members to take photographs of subjects which have significance to them. The first of what I hope to be several projects of this sort came about through my inability to be present on the island for the Easter celebration in 1998. Because there has been talk of advertising community festivals as a means of attracting more tourism, an understanding of this community-based religious festival is important to the study on tourism, and is personally interesting for me and the co-participants, who expressed interest in taking pictures, and whom I compensated. Actually, one of the co-participants in this small project, Beto, is an accomplished amateur photographer who has taken me to some of the best places on the island to shoot film and video. True to their word, Beto, Gabriel, and Gilberto have recently mailed me copies of their photographs with their significance for the images written on the back. They also have copies, and we have met to talk about the pictures and the experience of making them. It is our hope to make a sort of photo-essay about the festival and its significance for the participants. Of course, all of the co-participants will receive full credit for their parts in the creation of any presentation. (See figure 3.1.)

107 Figure 3.1: Easter Passion Play in Isla Mujeres (photograph by Luis Alberto Tenorio)

108 The advances made in video-recording technology are of great

importance to my study. Non-traditional video cameras, such as the Sharp

ViewCam, allow all parties to an interaction to monitor the interaction as it

takes place on a three-inch screen. The camera design also enables them to

review the footage immediately and socially, in full color and audio. The

camera's user-friendly operation and television-style appearance enables

community members to become involved in data-collection, enhancing the

interactional dimension of the research process. Rather than setting the

camera on a tripod in the comer and turning it on, resulting in a static, falsely

objective (and boring) two-shot, interlocutors can pass the camera back and

forth between them, filming the behavior of a speaking party or listening party at any given time. Of course, interlocutors can also just set the camera

down for awhile, letting it continue to record. Such a use of the camera

accentuates the true absence of audience/performer boundaries in ordinary human interaction, and highlights the artificiality of imposing such textual metaphors as authorship (implicating the traditional "authenticity" issue) onto the experiential social domain. (See also chapters 2 and 4, as well as

Pilotta, 1993.) After all, when the film is reviewed, who is the audience? who is the producer? what is the message? These questions lose their clear-cut answers; in fact, they lose their meaning.

109 In response to my centralization of cameras in the research process, some scholars would say that doing so completely negates any possibility for objectivity in the data collection. I affirm that there is no possibility for objectivity in any research, particularly of a social nature. The introduction of the researcher into the environment of the co-participants in and of itself negates any possibility for a return to a so-called "pre-studied," "authentic," or

"unmediated" world. The entrance of the researcher into the world of the co­ participants is accidental to their "ordinary" way of life. Everything is changing, even if ever so slightly, in this on-going process of mutual simultaneous shaping. To add a camera to the mix modifies and shapes an interaction as well. That some researchers feel a need to coach their "subjects" to "act naturally" belies the fact that it is urmatural and even disruptive to have a camera around. In fact, the most natural way to act in front of a camera is to act as if there is a camera there, with the researcher accepting the existence of whatever amount (or lack) of interest is natural to the person being filmed (Rich DiCenzo, personal communication, spring 1997). Thus, if someone does not wish to film or be filmed, I accept and honor that desire.

After all, I don't always feel comfortable engaging in these practices myself.

In addition, certain features of this particular type of video camera help me to avoid some of the avowed disadvantages of video data collection. The mini-screen enables the camera operator to hold the camera at waist level in participant observation settings. She can then look up and around at the

110 context of what is actually being recorded, while still monitoring that recording. This cuts down on the "blinder" side-effect that often prevents (or shields) a camera operator from interacting and becoming involved in a situation. The ViewCam is therefore less obtrusive, not "up in anyone's face."

This a benefit shared on both sides of the interaction. With ordinary video cameras, the face of the camera operator is blocked by the camera body, and becomes almost cyborgian, seriously inhibiting most people from establishing a personal link with the person behind it and perhaps leading to feelings of discomfort or mistrust, in a word, feelings of abjection. The ViewCam-style camera minimizes that problem by allowing for more natural, dynamic, face- to-face communication between the camera operator and the person being film ed.

Another strong point associated with using a ViewCam is its novelty.

Many people have never seen such a camera and are eager to play with it.

"Play" is indeed a good word here, because the camera cannot be given the status of "a scientific research tool": delicate, expensive, authoritative. Not only is this shift in orientation acceptable according to the methodology'’, it is desirable. Perhaps infusing our research with a ludic quality can be seen as another step in abandoning the abject orientation towards doing "serious," power-laden, scientific research. In addition, with a community-member behind the camera, the recorded footage (data) takes on a very different feel, a

111 vantage point from "inside" that a non-community member could never get on tape, resulting in footage reminiscent of a home video in some respects.

Actually, the presence of the researcher at the time of data-collection

(and in the data itself) is important to the data-analysis stage as well. The interactional sociolinguists Jordan and Henderson, n.d.) caution, "...much of the time, what the camera operator did not capture is subsequently unavailable to the researcher" (p. 16). This statement indicates just how much power actually lies in the hands of the person who holds the camera, and it provides a clue about how that power can be redistributed. Because of the loss of information, particularly contextual information, to which Jordan and

Henderson refer, the person who ultimately analyzes the data must be present at the actual recording. Not only will that provide the researcher with as much contextual information as possible, but that also allows for the representation of the researcher in the data. This is important because equal power relations cannot result from an interaction in which one person subjects another person to scrutiny without opening herself up to the same sort of scrutiny. In other words, the researcher must be present in the data in order for the analytic stage to be self-reflexive.

3. Data Analysis

To subvert abjection, it is also important to open up the possibility for co-participants to have a presence and voice in the analytic stage of the

112 research process. B y conducting something similar to what communication

scholars refer to as "focus groups," participants (including the researcher) can

have a chance to elaborate on their filmed experience, allowing for sites of

both divergence and conjunction. Analytic discussions regarding the process

of making the tape are also desirable for purposes of recursive,

methodological self-reflexivity and the further development of anti-abject

research methods.

These group analytic sessions have as their inspiration those conducted

by interactional sociolinguists (see Jordan and Henderson, n.d.), but these

would include the researcher and the co-participants, as opposed to including

solely researchers and their colleagues. However, similar sessions with

academic colleagues could also be part of the analytic process. Perhaps the co­ participant sessions could be conducted in a less formal atmosphere, in which everyone would feel comfortable expressing his or her viewpoint. These sessions ought to be recorded on video or audiotape, functioning to add to the body of research while facilitating the incorporation of co-participants' comments in the later stage of publication.

As far as the timing of the convening of a focus group in relation to a particular piece of footage is concerned, this is a valuable experience immediately after the filming (utilizing the on-site reviewing capabilities of the ViewCam), shortly after the filming (within a few days to a week), and after a longer period of time has passed (such as 3 or 6 months). This, of

113 course, has to be constructed so as not to place a burden on the co-participants.

With such an amount of co-participant involvement, it would be unfair not

to compensate them for their time and effort (in both the data-collection and

analysis stages) in a more than nominal fashion, and this is an issue I wül

return to in my discussion of publication. However many difficulties with

funding and permissions such a research model might present, the benefits

which can be associated with it are wide-ranging. For example, the inclusion

of co-participants' viewpoints would function to subvert, at least to some

degree, the "denial of coevalness" which Fabian has problematized in

ethnography (1983, p. 124), focussing attention on temporal concerns rather

than obscuring them.

In my study, the on-site analysis of textual materials, such as

guidebooks, promotional videos, advertisements, and Internet websites has

been advantageous in providing additional insights into the ways in which

both tourists and islanders interpret and experience these texts. In addition,

further on-site discussions with the producers (such as magazine publishers)

of such texts has also lead to a greater understanding of the motivations,

expectations, desires, and limits of the island community in regard to tourism

and economic development. Such discussions have proven invaluable to the

consideration of the economic bases of production underlying the majority of

touristic texts. Furthermore, on-site analysis helps to curtail a false objectification which may start to creep into a researcher's perspective after

114 long periods of temporal and spatial dislocation. Surrounding oneself with

photographs and mementos is not enough. Coming to view the community

as a static object is far less likely if one is located directly within the dynamic,

constantly shifting experiential domain of daily community life.

4. Publication of Results

There are several ways to modify practices involved with publication

so as to avoid a tendency towards abjection in social scientific research. The

first of these relates to the acknowledged necessity of publishing the results of

the study in multiple forms, designed with multiple audiences in mind

(Pilotta, et al., forthcoming, n.p.). While a dissertation, journal articles, and conference presentations must be produced which address the scholarly community, it is equally important that the results of the negotiated research questions be presented to the community which was involved in answering those questions. In addition, it may be desirable to publish the results in a wider public venue—to a more general audience, if doing so would further the self-expressed goals of the community.

As in the data-collection and analysis stages, communication technologies should be used to their greatest advantage. Thus, footage which had earlier been collected and analyzed as data could be edited into documentary videos for different audiences, including the community. The photographs taken by islanders could be published in the form of photo

115 essays, collected into a book, and incorporated into the videos. Even a community-based website could be produced which would draw on diverse creations and expressions. The possibilities are vast.

In scholarly texts, the use of multi-media components could be creatively interwoven with the requisite textual elements of the production to subvert the abject reliance on symbolic modes of presentation. In conference presentations, the construction of multi-media messages is nothing new. However, the advantages of multi-media can now be exploited in other venues. For example, journal articles could provide internet addresses to websites where image, text, music, and video data would supplement the material available on the printed page. Or, a CD-ROM with the same types of supplementary data could be packaged with a scholarly monograph. After aU, music cassette tapes have been packaged with books this way. Why can't we do that with CD-ROMs or even video cassettes? The point is that we need to creatively perceive and use communication technologies in order to escape the abjectifying tape recorder-transcription method of data presentation that communication research has been stuck in for so long.

With the creation of any co-production, the question of proceeds ought to come in. Who will be compensated and how? For a study that wishes to avoid abjection, such questions are paramount. This is actually an issue that has been considered in ethnography for a while. As far back as Notes and

116 Queries (4th éd., 1912), the British Association for the Advancement of

Science recognized the need to compensate "informants" for their labor. This

consisted of paying them the local equivalent to a day's wage (pp. 124-25). A

lot of communication researchers have not moved very far from this model,

handing out subject payments of about $20 for a two-hour focus group. Other

researchers have advanced as far as thanking and praising their "informants"

in the acknowledgements. To me, this doesn't seem to be enough, and I am

not the first to feel this way.

In his modem fieldwork primer, an heir to Notes and Queries, Agar

(1996) emphasizes the collaborative nature of aU ethnography, and he

suggests remedies for some unequal relations between the producers. As he

notes, "a few key people in the community do in fact help co-author the

study.... Maybe they should get a share of the royalties. Maybe they should be

listed as co-authors. Maybe they should" (p. 16). Agar's suggestion of co-

authorial rights resonates with me. If a trade book were to be published,

videos to be marketed, or any other type of royalty-producing venture were

ever to materialize as a result of my activities in Isla Mujeres, co-participants

will be involved in the distribution of those royalties, as well as having voices in the decision-making processes leading up to any of those products.

This is the orientation which I have taken in regard to my uncovering of a photograph depicting a female statue removed from the island in 1876

(see figure 3.2) Although Isla Mujeres takes its name from similar Mayan

117 f f i »

a '. 'A ï i V i ' r~r I i r

- l ‘. 1. .1 t . . * i . .j : i I- •II. .. n r .-t 1.^ Ti.r î ij T. r it *>•■: r •* i». i: »• j ’ii .ni-

*1 *-*j* ^1*. * • \ » f* . . v.ff J*; I •. ..f \ n, m Ti.. .

Figure 3.2: Mayan Statue Removed from the Island in 1876 (photograph reproduced from Salisbury, 1876)

118 statues encountered there by Cordoba in 1517, until now the people of the island have had no evidence of what those statues looked like. As the archivists at the island's Municipal Archive commented, this photograph provides a face to go with the name of Isla Mujeres. I have provided them with a copy of the photograph, and I am currently involved in exploring the possibility and desirability of using the image in marketing the island. Should this project come to fruition, proceeds from the use of the image would be employed in a manner that the community would perceive to be beneficial to its various groups, such as in a program augmenting the resources of the community's cultural center or one providing some other community service yet to be determined. (See chapter 7 for a further discussion of this project.)

119 CHAPTER 4

A PERSPECTIVE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY AS IT RELATES TO

ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES OF TOURISM IN "DEVELOPING" NAHONS

Introduction

As Vincent Mosco noted in his Communication Day address at the

Ohio State University (May 1996), the regional division of scholars studying

the political economy of communication into "North American, European,

and Third World" camps has led to the further development of various

perspectives which all carry the name of political economy but which diverge

from one another in terms of their reliance on Marxian assumptions as well

as in their ways of theorizing concepts which are central to the present study,

including communication, commodification, institutions, and power

relationships. Therefore, it is important to define the meaning of political

economy and its implications for this study, situating it within the framework of the on-going conversation. The perspective which follows will

120 offer a version of political economy which articulates the importance of a theory of preference formation and change which is supplied by phenomenology.

As exemplary of theorists working out of the primarily North

American institutional school of political economy, Sheilds and Samarajiva present political economy as a theory which can be employed as a means to

"understanding—the dynamics of social change" as related to information technologies. They focus on "the historical interplay between... 'institutional clusters'" and examine the "forces/relations of production... distribution... consumption... and domination" (p. 351). Taken together with their four key research questions in this piece, these statements imply a comprehensive definition of the political economy of communication.

Sheilds and Samarajiva's concern with "the principal causes and modalities of change in the present social formation associated with changes in information-communication technologies" (p. 351) indicates their application of theory in an effort to uncover the workings of preference formation and change. Here, the social formation is considered to both form and be formed by institutions—including capitalism, industrialism, and the state—which enable and constrain those modalities of change. Sheilds and

Samarajiva also interrogate the processes by which technologies may change or reify relations within society, asking how such social impacts might be modified through changes in the "design and institutionalization" of

121 information technologies (p. 351). Such a focus is compatible with a study

addressing concerns involved with international tourism because of the

ever-growing importance of information and communication technologies

in that field.

In essence then, the authors articulate a version of political economy as

the fundamentally social and historical study of structures, including

institutions, which work to both provide incentives for, as well as place

constraints upon, the actions of "knowledgeable agents," who have the power

to resist domination in various ways (Sheilds and Samarajiva, p. 373).

Institutions, or "habits of thought" (after Veblen, 1979, p. 141), are

apprehended as being neither static nor monolithic, but rather as modifiable

through conscious processes such as preference formation and subsequent

alterations in the allocation of resources (Rohan Samarajiva, personal

communication, September 1997).

A short literature review comparing the above definition with those

proffered by contemporary political economists of communication of the

institutional school can provide not only an indication of the definition's

serviceability, but it will also serve to justify Sheilds and Samarajiva

inclusion of key elements which other scholars have omitted. Specifically, the political economic analyses of Meehan, Mosco, and Wasko (1993), Gandy

(1993), and Pendakur (1993) illustrate the general lack of a theorization of the power inherent in the human being (i.e., subject, agent) despite some

122 recognition of their own abilities as scholars to resist hegemony. In fact, the

focussing of attention on such power is one point of intersection between abject communication theory and institutional political economy if styled after Sheilds and Samarajiva (1993).

Meehan, Mosco, and Wasko (1993) rather broadly delimit the purview of political economy as being the organizational development and maintenance of societies in terms of their "economic, political, social, and cultural goals" (p. 107). The authors state that political economy "examines the production, distribution, and consumption of resources, including communication and information resources" (p. 107). They advocate

"rethinking" political economy in terms of four issues which relate directly to elements found in Sheilds and Samarajiva's (1993) definition. First, their approach is inherently historical in its focus on the material "process of social change" (emphasis in the original, p. 107). Secondly, it holistically considers the relationships between "commodities, institutions, social relations, and hegemony" (p. 107). Thirdly, their political economy retains an evaluative aspect, concerning itself with questions of social amelioration.

Finally, they are concerned with praxis in that research ought to be considered subject to and intertwined with the society that has produced it and w hich it studies (pp. 107-108). A bsent, however. Is any real treatm ent of the ways in which human beings can actively and creatively interpret and work to modify dominant social structures.

123 Similarly, Gandy (1993) presents political economy as "a critical theory of late capitalism" designed towards the construction of "a theory of power which explains relations between emerging technologies, markets, and forms of social organization and consciousness" (p. 70). His project is to analyze

"sites and circumstances where the operation of systems of power has been mystified and hidden from view" (p. 70). Thus, in Gandy, we again see the key elements of a social, historically grounded theory which focuses on what could be considered institutions ("social organization and consciousness"), and which deals with issues related to market-based economic systems and technologies. However, Gandy omits a consideration of how preferences can be formed and changed, and his theory thus lacks a means of apprehending the mechanism by which human beings make choices. Despite the constraints that power-laden relationships impose, there are also elements—such as

"play"—in the social structure which enable agents to engage in true resistance and subversion.

Pendakur also offers a definition of political economy which includes most of the elements found in that of Sheilds and Samarajiva (1993). For him, political economy is "a vantage point to examine how communication in society occurs, who shapes it, under what specific conditions, and for what purposes.... [T]he institutions, the 'technologies,' their practices, their products and ideologies, [are] subjected to critical inquiry" (p. 85). He also sees the theory as one which poses normative questions regarding how things might

124 be otherwise and whether such possible alternatives would be better (p. 85).

Yet, as with other political economists of communication, Pendakur falls short on Sheilds and Samarajiva's fifth point, that regarding the conditions

for the possibility of resistance in the experiential domain. However,

Pendakur does realize the importance of those conditions, and that is one of two reasons he provides for advocating the importation of ethnography into poUtical economic analysis: as a way of getting to meaning. Pendakur is not the only political economist who has pointed to ethnography as a possible solution to this problem; Meehan, Mosco, and Wasko (1993) point to ethnography as a means of shoring up a methodic absence in their political economic approach (pp. 114-115). However, Pendakur is one of very few scholars in this field who have attempted such a blending, and it is for that reason that his work can serve as an extended case study for a discussion of the possibilities and limitations associated with such a combination.

Blending Political Economy with Ethnography

Pendakur (1993) presents a case for what he envisions could be a mutually beneficial relationship between political economy—as a research perspective—and ethnography—as a research method or a set of "valuable tools" (p. 86). As the following critique will show, practically speaking such a combination is not so easy to perform, and as I will later explain, it is only with the addition of phenomenological concepts that the hybrid becomes

125 truly viable and productive. Pendakur clearly notes the problems inherent in melding two traditions which are so distinct in their histories, citing the fundamental tension [which] exists between political economy and the individuated analysis of meaning making. Political economy assumes that people are structured into certain social positions given the historical development of institutions. The individuated analysis, however, allows power for the persons involved, (pp. 86-87) However interesting the concepts behind the attempt, this article unfortunately serves as an illustration of the dangers of which all scholars should be wary when they take on new research methods. Rather than identifying and operationalizing the theoretical and practical constructs which ethnographers have thematized for close to a century, Pendakur apprehends issues such as culture, context, and meaning according to the framework of past communication researchers, interpreting them in ways that lead the article to become a combination of a technology diffusion and media effects study. Indeed, his research questions involve the traditional media effects concerns. He then employs the "research tools" of ethnography without first examining the methodologies which support their usage by ethnographers.

In addition to his lack of understanding regarding the crucial concepts of meaning and culture, Pendakur's stated motivation—to dispel the incorrect notion portrayed by the Western media that India is a "sleeping giant" (p. 82)-

-seems to have fed into this becoming a classic communication effects study.

After all, the article begins with an argument towards re-imagining India and

126 its relationship to technology, and towards the end presents an image of a savvy sixteen-year-old media user who was "suspicious of the state's intentions in showing such images and clearly appeared conscious of the manipulative tactics employed by the programmers" (p. 103). The piece then concludes with a discussion of a Harijan family which appears to be experiencing the negative effects typically faced by early television adopters in the United States in the 1950s.

In keeping with the political economic orientation which he professes,

Pendakur does present information on the social and institutional structures which partially determine change in Ramanagara. Still, this type of information comprises a minor portion of the study. It is clear from his analysis that "many changes are happening in the patterns of living of rural

Indians" (p. 83) which include ones related to the government's extension of

"its reach into many aspects of economic and political Life of the average citizen" (p. 84). Of particular interest are details concerning the various changes taking place in the communications infrastructure: postal and telephone services, movie houses, and VCR rental outlets (pp. 92-94).

Furthermore, he touches upon issues such as the relationship between taxation and the price of televisions (p. 96), and he mentions the advent of the installment plan in the village, which is related to "the rise of a consumer economy in India" (p. 104). In addition, the reader can see how his list of as- yet-uncollected data (relating to economic, political, and cultural institutions.

127 and viewership) could eventually lead to a political economically oriented

understanding of the relation between this locale and the larger world.

Yet, despite the presence of some political economic issues, Pendakur's

over-riding diffusion/ effects orientation is further belied by his statements of

his purpose, made not only to his readers, but also to his "subjects": " to assess

change in all its economic, political, and cultural dimensions, given the arrival of commercial television in rural India" (p. 89). In short, he is studying the larger effects of television on the community, basing that in interviews which are designed "to get at questions related to how people are coping not only with larger processes of change, but also change related to television's arrival in their home" (p. 101). In this respect, it seems like

Pendakur is replicating the Lynds' Middletown studies. The villagers' question, "why write a book about television in the village?" (p. 102) further serves to illustrate that they understand this as a television effects study, and thus they give him the data to write such an article. It is not about the ways in which people understand and daily assign meaning to a new technology in their lives. Pendakur conceptualizes human beings in a way similar to that of non-critical Limited Effects researchers: as "'targets' of ... transnational media" who "receive and cope with the message system" (p. 85). These are not powerful, meaning-making, knowledgeable agents; they are just receivers who register "defensive" responses in their "cognitive maps" (p. 105).

Indeed, the diffusion/ effects orientation is additionally illustrated by the processes which Pendakur has singled out as important: issues which

128 have been traditionally associated with these older communication

perspectives. Although Pendakur presents his analysis as one which diverges

from Rogers' paradigm, the first of three village residents to which Pendakur

introduces us is what we might call the village's "early adopter," and

Pendakur highlights the usual personal qualities found in such adopters:

technological expertise, employment in a technologically-oriented institution,

and pride at being the first one to have the new technology (p. 95). Pendakur

goes on to provide us with precise figures (without source attribution) on how far the technology has diffused into the society year by year: "set penetration is low." There were 354 TV households in the village when

Pendakur did his study (p. 96).

The reader is further treated to data which could be seen as approximating a smorgasbord of that which television impact studies usually contain. We learn a smattering about the impact of the nightly news on the

"worldview" of middle- and upper-class/caste students as well as information regarding how it impacts their homework, family relationship patterns, and their cultural pride (p. 102). In the lower class/non-caste, we are shown how television is causing conflict between neighbors (haves and have nots) and between parents and children. Here, television is having the same effect of changing sleep patterns as it was found to in the United States earlier. The ghost of functional alternative media theory appears when Pendakur raises questions regarding whether television will take the place of festivals as a

"privatized leisure" activity (p. 102). Pendakur even does a little version of

129 1950s advertising effects studies, couching his analysis in terms which again

highlight an effects orientation, wondering if an "advertisement has sparked

the desire to consume" in viewers (p. 104).

With all of that said, a more-detailed explanation of the problematic

nature of Pendakur's conjunction of political economy and ethnography is in

order. As I mentioned earlier, much of the problem seems to stem from a simplistic understanding of what ethnography is. This is illustrated by

Pendakur's discussion of the two aspects of ethnography which he presents as important to political economy. According to his way of thinking, ethnography brings to the table a "concern... with problems of meaning" and a way of breaking the "subject-object dichotomy" (p. 87) in the practice of research. These "tools" are expected to enable political economists of communication to "probe the minds" (pp. 102, 104) of the human element that is subject to all of the economic and political structures which determine their communication envirorunents. Thus, Pendakur envisions ethnography as capable of providing the link between the global and the local which other scholars have perceived to be a value of conjoining the two bodies of research

(Marcus, 1986).

That Pendakur has a simplistic and limited understanding of ethnography is first indicated by his estimation of Mamdani, a political economist by training, who "seems to do ethnography intuitively but quite capably" (p. 88). I wonder what Pendakur would think of the idea that an

130 ethnographer could do political economy intuitively but capably? Apparently,

ethnography for Pendakur is to go to a village, interview some people, and

quote three of them in the text later. A quotation which he takes from Engles

further illustrates the problems behind Pendakur's approach; I have lived long enough amidst you to know something about your circumstances.... I have studied the various official and non-official documents.... I wanted more than a mere abstract knowledge of my subject. I wanted to see you in your own homes, to observe you in your every-day life, to chat with you on your condition and grievances, to witness your struggles against the social and political power of your oppressors, (emphasis in the original, p. 88) While the general substance of this quotation was revolutionary for its time, it is apparent from Engles' verb choice that his research method was heavy on observation and light on dialogue. Rather than acknowledging the participatory aspect of participant observation, which is more characteristic of contemporary ethnographic studies, Pendakur follows Engles and bases most of his analysis on his own observations rather than on dialogue and interaction.

This practical move seems to be justified by Pendakur's notion of how ethnography breaks the "subject-object dichotomy" (p. 87). According to the author, this occurs due to the fieldwork setting and the dual nature of the ethnographer as both the researcher and the research instrument. In the interviewing situation, he says that "the observer and observed are both looking, listening, talking" (p. 87). Yet, there is a lot more to breaking the

131 subject/object dichotomy than just having a conversation in the field. In fact,

as I explain more fully in chapter 2, ethnography alone is not capable of

surmounting this problem without recourse to phenomenology.

What Pendakur really relies on here is the practice of doing "native

ethnography," where a researcher studies the culture from which he/she

comes. As he explains, "Re-entering one's own culture and studying it

collapses the subject-object categories that are artificially set up in research. No

matter how sensitive one is, it privileges the researcher vis-a-vis the people

he or she is studying" (p. 89). While that can be true when a researcher adopts

a dialogic orientation which theorizes on the nature of the research interaction between members of the same culture, Pendakur presents little indication of how he fits into this community now or how it receives him, as a researcher and as a "native son." In fact, the monologic, subject/object orientation that Pendakur takes is indicated by statements such as "We wanted to probe their minds" (p. 104). While attempts at mind-probing smack of objectification (and abjectification), the authoritative use of "we" further widens a gulf between Pendakur and his interlocutors, especially when he is the sole author of the piece and no research assistants (other than his children) are identified.

That Pendakur does not fully grasp the relationship between the "new ethnography" and the subject/object dichotomy seems further indicated by his explanation for not discussing in greater detail this important issue, . which is one of two reasons he gives for including ethnographic research in

132 political economy in the first place: "Due to a lack of space in this chapter, I cannot elaborate on this process and its implications" (p. 89). In a chapter which is 28 pages long (the maximum length of any article in the book), one does not expect to find excuses like this. After all, Pendakur devotes more than ample space to a table on crop acreage (p. 92), the significance of which is never discussed in direct relation to the main topic of television ownership.

I earlier contended that Pendakur's study of television in his native village devolves into effects research because he lacks a grasp of how

"meaning" shows up in ethnography. Pendakur's problem is that he never opens up a space where his interlocutors' meanings for television can be articulated. This is because he has already determined the meaning for them, and now seems interested only in whether or not they are too naïve to concur with his professionally-based opinion. This is illustrated by his statement that villagers "did not quite appreciate why anyone should study an entertainment medium that they considered at best a nuisance" (p. 102). It is clear from this statement that Pendakur already "knows" what television means to the residents of the village: it is a source of entertainment and a nuisance.

Pendakur's practice of assuming the meaning of a message as given and then testing his interlocutors' understanding against that mezming is exemplified by his statement that "the overall impression given [by the media] is that the Indian nation-state is under siege by 'extremists' who are

133 out to destroy it for their own political ends. Whereas the reality of the

situation is far more complex than that...." (p. 103). Pendakur has already

determined the disjuncture between the "overall impression" and "the

reality." He then uses an interview question to check the responses of high school students to see if they share this view. Interestingly, when he writes of

reality in relation to his own meaning structure, he does not call attention to it as he does when referring to his "subjects'" reality. His discussion of "the most striking response" states that it "indicates that the viewers are comparing one impression of 'reality' presented on television news about the

United States to their own social system: One nation stands advanced, the other nakedly backward" (p. 104). Happily for Pendakur, the high school student has passed the test, which apparently means that the author can now generalize about all the viewers. This is not a method by which critical ethnographers go about understanding meaning-making processes.

The Value of Political Economy to Ethnography

On the other hand, an ethnography, particularly one associated with tourism, cannot safely overlook the issues which political economy has historically addressed. A claim made in folklorist Regina Bendix's (1989) article on Swiss tourism serves as an excellent basis for the following discussion: Much of the anthropological research of tourism has focused on Third World settings, in part because anthropology has always foregrounded these cultures for ethnographic study. Yet, studies of the latest frontier of tourism might benefit from insights to be garnered in First World 134 settings. Interlaken and similar resorts with lengthy histories of tourist development are excellent research areas for learning to understand both the process of inventing traditions and the role of tourism within it. The case of Interlaken would suggest that internal value systems are sufficiently resilient to cope with and confront tourism in the subtle or blatant emblems embodied in cultural displays. Interlaken and Swiss natives are no different than other host societies in their capability to realize what is happening to them, by them, for them, and around them. Their big advantage compared to other host societies in Third World settings is that they have had 200 years to find their own cultural responses to cope with touristic presence, (pp. 143-144) While Bendix's study has application to at least some "Third World" settings, in that it teUs us what can happen when "hosts" and "guests" come from similar cultures and when more equal power differentials between the two groups prevail, there are at least three mitigating factors in every touristic situation which prevent one from generalizing so broadly: the "host" population, the "tourist" population, and the touristic situation's history.

When we begin to generalize on similarities between countries which have historically been on different ends of the colonialist experience, we seem to lose more than we gain. In any discussion of tradition, authenticity, and cultural display, it is important to keep in mind the socio-historical forces w hich are involved. As Stew art (1993) has noted: With the development of culture under an exchange economy, the search for authentic experience and, correlatively, the search for the authentic object become critical. As experience is increasingly mediated and abstracted, the lived relation of the body to the phenomenological world is replaced by a nostalgic myth of contact and presence. 'Authentic' experience becomes both elusive and allusive as it is placed

135 beyond the horizon of present lived experience, the beyond in which... the exotic, and other fictive domains are articulated, (p. 133). Clearly, issues of political economy cannot be overlooked.

As so many folklorists have noted, the concept of tradition is one with which the discipline itself has long been concerned. Tradition is no longer accepted as the stable, trait-oriented process that earlier folklorists envisioned in their searches for "survivals." Rather, as Handler and Linnekin (1984) explain, tradition "is a model of the past and is inseparable from the present"

(p. 276). I would add that it is also shaped by the future, through the expectations of the people involved. The discipline's long-term concern with tradition indicates that folkloric studies generally need to take the issue into account. Even if one should accept Ben-Amos's (1975) suggestion that there is nothing inherently traditional about folklore, the folklorist seems to be expected by the field to take a position on tradition.

In her study on Interlaken, Bendix (1989) takes up the historian

Hobsbawm's term, "invented tradition" (1983). According to Hobsbawm, this term does not apply to all traditions, only to those which are "actually invented, constructed and formally instituted and those emerging in a less easily traceable manner within a brief and datable period—a matter of a few years perhaps—and establishing themselves with great rapidity" (p. 1).

Furthermore, he locates this process historically and spatially, specifically relating it to the rise of nationalism in Western Europe over the course of the last two hundred years. For Bendix's study of a Swiss tourist location then, the

136 application of this historical theory is germane. However, it may not apply to locations which did not serve as the capital base of the imperialist/colonialist nexus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but were rather those colonized and subjugated by such nations. One might argue that in post­ colonial countries, the "attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past" (Hobsbawm, p. 1) characteristic of invented traditions is equal to that which the Swiss have done in reviving or creating certain festivals. However, one must consider whether attempts to re-establish a link with an indigenous culture that has been forcefully crushed (sometimes within memorable history) is the same as reaching back into time a few centuries for cultural components "worthy" of display purposes.

Authenticity is an issue related to tradition and one with which folklorists have also been concerned for a considerable amount of time. The history of the topic is so varied and lengthy that Bendix (1997) recently published an entire monograph devoted to it, in which she concludes that

"acknowledging the constructed and deceptive nature of authenticity leads to cultural scholarship committed to life on a planet characterized by inescapable transculturation" (p. 228). Folklorists and anthropologists have realized that authenticity is still an important issue for a great many tourists. Yet, clearly not all tourists share in the search for authenticity, as is witnessed by the popularity of fantastic places like Disneyland. The issue of "whose authenticity?" does not, to my mind, seem to have been problematized

137 enough, and it seems complicated by the many concepts that are traveling under the guise of the same word. After all, authenticity may be important to the people whose culture is being judged in all of this, too. While folklorists have their own (changing) definition for the concept, tourists have one too, one which they accept according to their own culturally informed expectations. These expectations may have nothing to do with the actual life- world experience of the people whose "authenticity" they wish to observe.

From my chosen philosophical perspective, I contend that there is no unauthentic experience. Thus, there can be no authentic experience. All experience is "real" for the experiencer. For many years, phenomenologists including Merleau-Ponty and Pilotta have worked to articulate such a position. Pilotta (1979) shows that the standardly accepted position on authenticity can be traced back to "the distinction between appearance and reality" made by Platonic idealism (pp. 290-291). From a non-Platonic perspective which recognizes that an idealized world of forms is non-existent, there is no one thing that is any more real than any other. Rather, phenomenology draws a distinction between those things which are more or less significant and more or less relevant to a particular situaion (as discussed m ore fully in chapter 3).

Thus, the local inhabitants' experiences are --rays authentic. They live as they live. In fact, very frequently, the authenticity that tourists seek is decried by natives as completely unauthentic. It thus becomes the

138 provenance of the theme park to provide the scenes of authenticity—the

authentic Mayan village for example—which the tourists have come to see. At

the end of their shift, the employees, who may have been grinding up

commeal by hand to make tortillas in front of the tourists all day, may well

exchange their "traditional" garb for their T-shirts, shorts, and Nikes, and

then stop by the "super" for a package of flour tortillas made by a factory in

Cancun. Phenomenologically speaking, these latter practices are more

relevant and more significant to the daily life situations of the laborers than

are those practices which tourists might label as being the "authentic ones."

In regard to the tourists' search for authenticity, Graybum (1983) has noted that "This model of the educated classes seeking authenticity 'out there' has a historical continuity with the exponents of the leading exploratory urges of the post-Renaissance Western world" and is directly related to an "impulse to 'conquer' the Other..." (p. 18). Thus, authenticity may not necessarily be an important issue to a tourist who does not share those cultural origins. In academia, the search for authenticity could be considered a "survival" from the old evolutionary days of anthropology and folklore, this search for the

"pure" form being rather characteristic of fascism.

Bendix's third central concern, cultural display, relates to certain tourist locations, to be sure, but again, it is one that is not necessarily relevant to all of them. If we look to the etymology of the word display, these would be occasions of "unfolding" the culture for someone to view. That is, every

139 display requires a displayer and a displayee. While cultural displays could be considered as occurring constantly, as a mother displays aspects of a culture to a child when baking cookies, cultural displays here seem to relate to the idea of public displays of culture, as happens, for example in festivals. Cultural display of this sort appears to be related to the expectations of the tourists who visit a location. It may be that "recreational tourists" do not seek out "cultural knowledge." The scuba diving and snorkeling crowd in Cozumel (a site promoted as having "the clearest water in the world") exhibits this tendency.

Most (not all) divers are known for their obsession with these sporting activities. A T-shirt in Isla Mujeres (another spot where divers congregate) illustrates the mentality of these tourists: "Dive, Eat, Sleep. Do it all again." As a magazine publisher in Cozumel explained to me, divers usually aren't interested in anything that is happening above the water line (Antonio Palma

Suarez, personal communication, March 1998).

Actually, the north-eastern coast of the Yucatan is an ideal location for exploring some ways different tourist populations interact with local communities and each other. Cancun provides an excellent example of "mass tourism" and the "charter trip" phenomenon. Cozumel attracts mainly recreationalists, and Isla Mujeres provides a safe environment for people who want to experience an "exotic" culture while still enjoying Western

140 amenities. This is certainly a broad generalization, but it is one that I have

developed from talking to both tourists of many types and islanders of all

classes.

According to Bendix (1989), her study of tourism in Interlaken seems

"to suggest that internal value systems are sufficiently resilient to cope with

and confront tourism in the subtle or blatant emblems embodied in cultural

displays" (p. 144). While this may be true of communities in Switzerland and

other so-called "First-world" nations, the Literature on tourism in post­

colonial areas—and even in the United States—shows that this is not always

the case.

Both Pearce (1988, p. 6) and Evans-Pritchard (1987, p. 292) realize the

active shaping that a tourism economy has on the cultural displays in

particular locations. Local people come to realize what tourists expect to see,

and following the laws of supply and demand, often give the people what

they want, making them pay, of course. This is a process of the

commodification of culture, and it is one that the notion of "invented

tradition" might actually serve to obfuscate. If all traditions are invented,

then it doesn't really matter if there are changes occurring in a particular

place; it's normal and inevitable from such a perspective.

These changes, however, have also been viewed as cultural imperialism, as a process of forcing the "Other" conform to one's own expectations, while at the same time expecting them to view one's habits and

141 social practices as acceptable. This can be even more problematic when ownership situations are of the sort that are present in and around Cancun.

Citing Nash (1977), Smith (1977) notes that "When the tourism industry is managed by outsiders, to whom profits flow, tourism becomes a form of imperialism... and may often develop into a neo-colonialism" (p. 5). That some of the inhabitants of Isla Mujeres are feeling exploited and suspicious became clear to me on my third and fourth research trips. Discussions of the surveillance that the CIA and other governmental agencies conduct seemed to occur with some frequency. Another topic of great dispute for many people has been the "sale" (officials say it is the twenty-year lease) of El Garrafon, the island's national park, to the Regina-Westin corporation. It seems as though everyone has an opinion on this issue, and most of those opinions are negative, many islanders proposing that they take over control of the formerly-mismanaged nature preserve. In 1999, the direction of Hacienda

Mundaca, another tourist attraction, was conceded to a local youth organization in an attempt to compromise.^

This local situation brings to mind the regional situation of the southern portion of the Yucatan peninsula. There appears the multinational complex involved in rain forest conservation, archeological research, and traditional milpa farming culture. In the past, land in the Guatemalan highlands, historically occupied by the Quiche Maya, was blatantly expropriated from indigenous people such as those described in I, Rigoberta Menchii (Burgos- Debray, 1984) in the name of capitalism and the cotton and coffee plantation system. Now, as sympathetically chronicled by National Geographic (Garrett, 1989), huge tracts of land are being "reserved" into biospheres to "save" the rain forests. Yet, the effect remains the same...taking away the land from the rightful owners for the benefit of the Capitalist West—including me and you. After all, what the movement is actually saying is, "You Maya have to give up your traditional cultural practices of swidden farming—and all of the attendant rituals which attend a worldview—a way of life—so that we 142 As a matter of fact, Hobsbawm's (1983) discussion of "invented tradition" illustrates the reactivity inherent in the process of cultural imperialism. Invented traditions "are responses to novel situations which take the form of reference to old situations" (p. 2). A massive influx of tourists from diverse cultures can be seen as just such a novel situation.

Furthermore, Hobsbawm places the whole process in rather negative terms:

"we should expect to see it occur more frequently when a rapid transformation weakens or destroys the social patterns for which 'old' traditions had been designed" (p. 4). Thus, we could see invented traditions as being reactions to a cultural assault on certain locations, particularly in small nations which experience heavy tourist traffic. The more invented traditions that are developed, the harder the community is having to work to retain stability.

Pearce (1988) has noted that "Direct contact between the tourists and local people of Third World and poorer communities often generates discord, exploitation and social problem s (p. 5). Smith (1977) notes that can "protect" the rain forest. We need the rain forest to replenish the oxygen levels that we, with our military industrial complex, airplanes, cars, factories, are destroying." And it's all so nicely enshrouded in the desirable green rhetoric. How could any American stand up against this ideology? "Save the rain forests"... but from whom? Their traditional owners. "Save the archeological ruins from being looted"... but by whom? The ancestors of those who left the ruins behind. Sometimes it seems to be way too early to talk about "posf'colonialism. And who owns, who controls vast tracts of rain forest land and the ruins now? In part, the Coca-Cola Corporation (Garrett, p. 466), producers of what many Mexicans recognize as "las aguas negras del iniperialismo Yanqiii": the sewage of Yankee imperialism. (I'd like to thank Miguel Rojas for bringing this "joke" to my attention.)

143 interpersonal conflict between hosts and guests is minimal when their respective standards of living are similar, as in urban centers, Switzerland, or Australia and New Zealand. Here, hosts have the economic capacity and social incentives to travel, to become guests in some other land. (p. 4) Various other authors have illustrated the tourism-related increases in crime, drug and alcohol use, and various forms of prostitution and sexual exploitation with which nations such as Mexico, Tonga (Urbanowicz, 1977),

Korea, the Philippines (Gonseth, 1988), and Sri Lanka (Garcia, 1988) have had to cope. With such a dramatic impact taking place on so many social levels, I wonder how Bendix might argue that "sufficient" cultural resilience remains in such locations.

Further Contributions of Political Economy to Ethnography

As illustrated by the critique of Bendix, a strong orientation towards questions of political economy is essential to an ethnographic discussion of tourism, no matter where that tourism is taking place. And, despite the problems illustrated by Pendakur's attempt to meld the theory with the method, there are many benefits associated with combining political economy with ethnography, particularly if one does so with a phenomenological orientation. While this is exemplified by my research in Isla Mujeres, it is important to note that the following does not constitute a full-blown political analysis of tourism in Isla Mujeres. There are several reason for this omission, including the unreliability which characterizes a great deal of the

144 institutional data upon which such an analysis would be founded. Such

unreliability also characterizes the accounting records of private businesses.

Furthermore, where reliable records do exist, an atmosphere of suspicion

surrounds them. A whole host of factors reinforces that suspicion, including

the political economic history of Mexico, and personal traits such as my

nationality, age, and gender. I realized early on in the research process that

requesting such documents only threw up more barriers to the collection of

the ethnographic data. It seemed as though I had to choose between one or

the other. I accepted those limitations to the study and moved on. In my

future role as a researcher who is based on the island, the collection of such data may become more possible.

The first aspect of political economy's value to the project is the spatial contextualization which it introduces. One danger in doing a bounded, localized communication study of tourism on an island (or a Swiss village) is coming to consider it as just that: an isolated, dislocated microcosm with no connection to the larger context which both shapes and is shaped by it. Paying attention to the globally situated nature of the community on Isla Mujeres is important to the process of coming to an understanding that such a communication study seeks out. It is precisely this value of political economy as a link between the local and the global that George Marcus (1986) has noted in his discussion of the "new ways in which ethnographic texts can take account of the manner in which world-historical political economy constitutes their subjects" (p. 168, n. 5.). Marcus explains that a basis in

145 political economy enables ethnographers to "construct the text around a strategically selected local, treating the system as background, albeit without losing sight of the fact that it is integrally constitutive of cultural life with the bounded subject matter" (p. 172).

This kind of connection to the larger economic, political, and social structures is even more important to a study which examines communicative actions in relation to international tourism. As the political scientist Matthews (1978) has pointed out, international tourism presupposes relationships of at least four types: government/government, government/foreign corporation, parent corporation/subsidiary, and international organization (e.g. UNCTAD)/government (pp. 10-11). A study of tourism on Isla Mujeres which examined solely the face-to-face interactions of tourists and islanders (or even those between politicians and community leaders) would completely miss the communication processes involved in these institutional relationships, and would consequently overlook important factors which mediate to a degree what can be said, by whom, to whom, and for what purpose—at a tourism planning session or even in a beach-front bar.

An example of the way a spatially contextualizing political economic approach can help to make sense of daily communicative interactions on the island relates to the economic realities which tourism laborers experience and the influx of capital which seems as though it should be augmenting the quality of life of those laborers. More capital is flowing into this region of

146 México than ever before. It is widely accepted that Cancun and the

surrounding area is one of the most favored spots for international touristic

development in the world today. However, the profits gained from

investments are generally not being funneled back into the local economy.

Instead, capital is flowing through the area and while some, of course,

remains, an estimated 85-95% of that capital eventually flows out of the

peninsula and into the coffers of international corporations and

entrepreneurs. For Isla Mujeres, this can actually be a two-stage flow, with

Cancun often serving as a "middleman." Although there is a fairly well-

established pattern of long-term local ownership regarding undeveloped real

estate, local housing, and hotels, the higher class restaurants, such as

Pinguino's (owned by Aquaworld) and Rolandi's are members of

internationally based chains, and high-end shops, such as Van Cleef and

Arpels and Foco Loco, are also internationally owned. Despite their revenues

being far greater than the majority of the small businesses with which they

compete, employees of these restaurants and shops often receive only a

minimum wage, whereas many locally based employers pay higher wages.

Furthermore, it does not appear that these international businesses are

investing very much in community social services to benefit employees and

their families.

In and of itself, this ownership situation is not highly problematic.

However, it is also true that the bulk of tourists who visit Isla Mujeres are day-trippers from Cancùn who travel on pre-paid package trips run by these

147 same international corporations: Aquaworld and Van Cleef and Arpels being two of the largest tour operators. Their clients are shuttled from Cancun by boat straight to affiliated stores on the island where they are encouraged to purchase souvenirs, including expensive jewelry. At least in this case, the tourists are spending some of their money on the island. Yet, other tour operators intentionally misinform day-trippers, convincing them to "leave their money in Cancun" (literally) because of supposed high prices and safety issues on the island. Without a political economic orientation, a communication researcher may well overlook these issues which daily impact upon the experiential domain of the laborers.

Following Marx (1978), "The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones....They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity" (p. 149). The tourism laborers on Isla

Mujeres live in worlds that are more complexly structured than they might realize on a daily basis. They are the ones who most fully feel the ebb and flow of the tourist seasons, and there are political, economic, and social structures which enable and constrict their various movements and desires, as well as opening up possibilities for action. How will changes in the political economic situation of the island affect the life situations of the islenos who experience increases in their cost of living, but who may not necessarily receive higher wages solely because their employers' profit margins swell?

148 Will new tourism management measures eventually exclude them from purchasing goods and services on the island, or even lead to their relocation?

A sensuous political economy of communication can help to answer these questions, placing the island situation within the larger context of global capitalism, allowing for the identification of Isla Mujeres as a service provider in a global economy.

A second contextualizing aspect of political economy is temporal in that this approach is historically-oriented and apprehends "the sensuous world [as]...an historical product....the total living sensuous activity of the individuals composing it" (Marx, 1978, pp. 170-171). Among other things, situating Isla Mujeres with the help of historical materialism allows the communication researcher to come to an understanding of how tourism could come to be so important as an economic base for the present social formation. Although Isla Mujeres is considered geographically as part of the

Yucatan peninsula, and a great majority of its inhabitants have migrated there from both urban centers and pueblos in the states of Campeche,

Yucatan, and Quintana Roo, the island's international relationships have a solid basis in history.

There are several reasons for this. First, the island was more easily approached by sea (up and around the top of the peninsula) than by land until the 1960s when a road was built linking Merida with the Cancun coast. Also, the island was permanently settled in the 1850s by Cuban fisherman (whose descendants retain strong ties with Cuba), and the population was further

149 augmented by a number of upper-class refugees from the Caste War between the Cruzob Maya and the provincial government in Merida in the decades following the settlement (Villanueva Madrid, 1994, p. 3). Thus, similarly to the rest of Yucatan, Isla Mujeres has a history characterized by an outwardly- looking orientation. Social and political elites of the peninsula even applied to the British Empire (in the Nineteenth Century) and the United States (in the Twentieth Century) for protection from Mexico (Konrad, 1991, pp. 143-

144). Furthermore, the region has been characterized by monocrop economies

(henequen and chicle). The island's current reliance on tourism for approximately 95% of its economy can be seen as an extension of a monocrop mentality into a globally situated monoservice economy.

When we consider the present economic situation of the island in relationship to these historical trends, international tourism appears to be more deeply integrated into the culture and society than a communication researcher without a background in historical materialism might assume.

After all, tourism in Isla Mujeres predates the government-planned development of Cancun which began in 1974; tourist guidebooks have described Isla Mujeres as a tourist spot since at least the early 1960s. And "the man who brought tourism to Isla Mujeres" is still a common appelation for one of the local pillars of the community. (It is interesting to note that the hotel—now called El Présidente—which he built to house those early tourists.

150 and which was even used as a set for Hollywood movies in its heyday, now stands empty and abandoned, casting its shadow on the island's most beautiful beach.)

The apparent necessity of tourism to the community becomes even more clear if we examine earlier economic bases for the settlement on the island, which included salt production, fishing, and ranching (Villanueva

Madrid, 1994, pp. 3-4). Clearly, none of these activities could come close to sustaining the present demographic situation, and an exodus from the island of all but the highest classes would most likely ensue were tourism to be curtailed. Thus, the historical nature of political economy adds to this study an awareness of the conditions for the possibility and even necessity of tourism in Isla Mujeres.

It is important to note that the contextualizing functions of political economy also must be applied reflexively to the situation of the researcher. It can be used as a tool towards reflexivity for a scholar who is involved in the process of academic knowledge production, which has been roundly accepted as being a power-oriented activity. We, as scholars, must recognize our material conditions, and determine while engaged in the research process who that power will serve. This can be done in part by centralizing the participation of community members in all stages of the project. In this way, the product can serve the interests of its co-producers most immediately.

Although we cannot completely limit the future application of the products of our research, we can be aware of the ways in which they could be used in

151 the future, and focus on ways of materially shaping the process such as to

determine in some degree the uses to which our products might later be put.

A further contribution of political economy to a study of tourism is the

emphasis that such an approach places on the allocation of resources. By

considering the "natural beauty" of the island as a resource which, by nature

of current "Western" leisure patterns and preferences, is worth paying top

dollar for, we can come to understand how that resource can be utilized,

augmented, fostered, wasted, and/or lost. Along with considerations of other

more tangible material resources, including capital and human labor, a

communication study which takes note of allocation issues can gain further

insight into communicative processes in which community leaders are

involved regarding ways of maximizing the benefits of tourism on the island.

In their plan to attract a wealthier class of tourists, the island's recently-

created tourism council (The Fideicomiso) is currently discussing the

diversion of resources into new projects: cleaning up rubbish heaps on

beaches and vacant lots, refurbishing hotel rooms, and improving other

elements of the tourism infrastructure, including the telecommunications

infrastructure (Gilberto Pastrana Novelo, Delegado de Turismo en Isla

Mujeres, Quintana Roo, personal communication, June 1997). These

investments must be underwritten by the government, international

corporations, and by local business owners. In exchange for their investments,

taxes and increases in consumer costs for goods and services are expected.

While these costs will be passed on to tourists, with the added hope of

152 excluding the poorer ones, they may be passed on to labor-class islenos as well. In fact, the effects of such policies were felt by laborers in 1998 when the one-way ferry fare to Cancun was raised to 22 pesos, nearly the equivalent of one day's minimum wage (26 pesos). In response, a political party, the PRD, circulated a petition for a double-rate policy to be instituted. The petition was enthusiastically received and signed by islenos who were outraged by this price increase (personal observation, March 1998). However, the petition was denied, and because of the 35-year old monopoly on transportation services, islenos have been left with no choice but to accept the situation.

Phenomenological Contributions to Political Economy

The example of Isla Mujeres's tourism council further illustrates the necessity of a theory of preference formation and change, which a political economic approach ought to include, but which is frequently absent, as with

Pendakur's work. In fact, this is one value which phenomenologically informed ethnographic inquiry can bring to political economy. Theorizing on the ways in which preferences form and change over time can provide a solid basis for not only understanding the present situation, but also for developing and actualizing plans which will facilitate the attainment of community members' self-expressed goals. Realizing that a certain preference for vacationing on tropical islands pervades the global tourism community, the council is undertaking a program to capitalize on that preference by

153 attempting to present Isla Mujeres in such a way that it will fit an idealized notion of "a tropical paradise." This bid to maximize the profits gained from each tourist involves both inclusionary and exclusionary tactics which could harm the island if attention is not paid to resource allocation issues and the historically mediated processes involved in successfully changing preferences.

Beyond mere price hikes and remodeling, the island community will need to take charge of producing and distributing its own image in such a way as to attract the clientele it desires. Such a project ought to be implemented using international venues, which will require using newer telecommunications technologies as well as more conventional print media.

While there are many websites promoting various businesses on the island, I know of none which is committed to presenting the island community by itself and for itself.

As I illustrated in my critique of Pendakur's (1993) work, the pure political economist has a difficult time moving from the structures and forces that determine economic, social, and political conditions, to the world of meaning-making and the analysis of how the more grounded, experiential world helps, in turn, to shape institutions. Although ethnography can provide methods of reaching into that world, it must be conjoined with a philosophical and methodological orientation which can open up the complexities of meaning. Phenomenology provides such an orientation.

Without a theory of expectations on the part of human beings, coming to an understanding of preference formation and change is an elusive

154 prospect. However, if we consider these processes from a perspective which

apprehends the importance of meaning for human beings, we can effectively

link the lived, experiential domain with the political, economic structures

which both determine and are determined by life-world experience.

Phenomenologically, preference formation is a process by which human beings, situated at a temporally- and spatially-located "now" point between past and future, make selections based on criteria which are relevant to and have significance in relation to past experience (history). These criteria are examined and evaluated in terms of how they can move a being into a valued, significant, meaningful future. The future, then, is mediated by past experience and the present situation. They serve to both constrain and provide incentives for new action. As the now point moves into what was once the future, the present becomes the past, and expectations change depending upon the already-experienced. (See chapter 3 for a more complete discussion of the relationship between the concepts of significance, relevance, selection, history, time, space, and situation.)

An added danger in doing a purely political economic study of communication practices associated with tourism (in Isla Mujeres or elsewhere) is that the focus on the political and economic structures of institutions could lead the researcher to miss the more individualized, localized factors in the situation. Such a study could come under critique for being too deterministic or absolutist, allowing no opening for explanations of human beings' power to alter and ameliorate their circumstances. The

155 striving for totality, as illustrated by Pendakur's analysis, can be read as

symptomatic of this macroscopic view, and it is a goal which critical

ethnography opposes in its apprehension of the constantly-shifting nature of

culture in the social formation.

An -equally important contribution of phenomenology to political

economy involves its apprehension of what has been called libidinal

economy (Deleuze and Guattari, 1977) and upon which Lingis elaborates in

his w ork Excesses: Eros and Culture (1983). Theorizing on the libidinal or

sensuous aspect of the tourism situation allows the scholar to focus on how

certain forms of commerce operate and how the sensuous is commodified. As

more fully illustrated in chapters 6 and 7, an important aspect of tourism

communication involves the development of what might be called "the erotic" or "the libidinal." In postcards, in souvenirs, and in the relationships that spring up between tourists and hosts, there exists something more than just the circulation of commodities. As Lingis asks, "Why did one also crave to embrace and couple with strangers? What else did one get in orgasms, which one did not get through commerce with the other in the exchange systems of economy, marriage, language?" (1983 p. 4). Although this quotation might lead the reader to imagine that the libidinal relates only to sexual intercourse, such is not the case.

Rather, the libidinal (or the sensuous) provides the theorist with a pre- cognitive bedrock for the development of preference formation. The libidinal offers a means of articulating how commodities are involved in the way

156 people are disposed to making choices. Rather than being a one-sided

relationship in which the consumer chooses a product based on a rational

framework, the commodity/consumer relationship is two-sided.

Commodities have their own attractions, their own connectivities, which

work upon and influence consumers. In short, products (including tourist

destinations) call out to be chosen, in a manner which is characterized by the

mutual simultaneous shaping more fully described in Chapter 2.

Prior to signs and intentionahty, there remains the libidinal as the

origin of value. As Lingis notes, "In capitalism all the excitations, all the

pleasures and the pains produced on the surface of life are inscribed, recorded,

fixed, coded on the transcendent body of capital...A man, as a sensuous being,

is a commodity, Kant explained in The Metaphysical Principles of Virtue, whose 'skill and diligence in labor have a market value; wit, lively imagination, and humor have a fancy value'" (1983, p. 44). Thus, in the field, the libidinal is often found in what remains unsaid—in the community and in the research process. These are the hidden processes which exist outside of the strictly defined political economy, and the local economy of Isla Mujeres is more Libidinal than the average circulation of commodities which could be described under broad headings such as Capitalism, Socialism, Feudalism, and so forth. As Lingis explains, the notion of the libidinal originally comes out of Freud. "In Beyond the Pleasure Principle Freud was working at a concept of the libidinal essence of life. He did not begin with the concept of

157 intentions, or of sensations, that is, signifying impressions; he worked with the concept of excitations....We have to think of this vital effervescence, this layer of libidinal life, as a sheer multiplicity of these effects, these excitations"

(Lingis, 1983, pp. 26-27).

Because of the shifting and unspoken nature of the libidinal, its importance may be overlooked or misunderstood by tourism developers, particularly in the case of international tourism. The fact is that various cultural groups have differing libidinal desires—tastes—and thus may value experiences and products differently. Thus, the producers of the experience may not be offering that which the consumers are seeking. A site-specific example from Isla Mujeres can serve as a brief explication of such a problematic situation, but readers will find further, more complete examples in chapters 6 and 7.

In advertisements (internet, print, and video), Isla Mujeres is presented to potential consumers as a typical tropical vacation resort: sandy beaches, blue sea, palm trees. However, the cultural, social, and historical importance of the island has been overlooked in marketing strategies. After making a presentation to the island's tourism council regarding these untapped resources, I was approached with exclamations of wonder and surprise. "It's amazing to hear about all these things we didn't know we had, even though we live here. I guess it takes an outsider to show us what we've really got," one committee member said.

158 In essence, tourists have their own culturally-mediated senses and

sensibilities, likes and dislikes. What they value may be indigenous to Isla

Mujeres, but natives, who have their own tastes, may not value those same

elements as highly, if at all. I, as a scholar who comes from the same culture

as many of the tourists, may be able to understand their preferences more

naturally, and thus see more clearly the potential which Isla Mujeres has to

offer. Promoters of tourism destinations need to come to an appreciation of

these tastes in order to attract and subsequently satisfy their consumers. In

addition, promoters need to realize that there is no "natural" taste for any one

culture, but rather that those preferences can change and shape (as weU as be

shaped by) the tastes of the indigenous population and the environment.

C onclusion

Ethnography bases its efforts at collecting and interpreting information

within fieldwork situations because its practitioners realize that true

understanding will remain elusive without first-hand experience of a

cultural group and its environment. Participant observation allows them to

tap into the unsaid, pre-discursive nexus on which people base their

apprehension of the world and their everyday behavior. On the other hand,

political economists have illustrated that the ways in which people interpret

their situations and their roles in those situations are both constrained and enabled by structuring forces which are much more pervasive than can often be recognized on a local level, particularly in an era which is characterized by

159 a global economy. However, they have historically encountered a problem

when attempting to explain the individuated meaning-making processes

which make up the basis for human behavior and thought. As the above

discussion shows, in both the case of ethnography and political economy,

phenomenological reflection can help scholars extend the potential of their

theories by incorporating elements, such as the libidinal, which have been heretofore overlooked as playing a role in the formation of preferences on a local level.

160 CHAPTERS

FLESHTONES OF THE SHUAHON

Introduction

The original intent of this dissertation was not to focus upon or highlight the importance of changing the way ethnography is written. There are plenty of recent works which interrogate that complex of issues, including

Writing Culture (1986) and Women Writing Culture (1995). Indeed, the writing of ethnography has become a subject of wide discussion throughout the academy. Yet, in my studies, I have been struck by the lack of a contemporary discussion of modifying the ways in which ethnography is done. And that is where I still feel that my contribution to scholarly knowledge lies; in reflecting upon how a phenomenological approach can inform the way ethnography is done.

Neither this work nor the present chapter is "an ethnography." Rather, these are the pre-conditions for an ethnography of Isla Mujeres, one which I plan to write in the future. However, in the process of writing this theoretical work, I have found it necessary to include ethnographic information as a means of orienting readers to the situation which I chose for my case study

161 site. And, as I have argued before, revisions in the doing process cannot help

but effect changes in the writing process, which must then result in a radically

different product. If we want to really change ethnography—and not just

nominally—we must start by changing the doing of it. While other chapters

explore the meaning behind such a statement, this chapter implicitly ‘

highlights the writing of ethnography.

One change I have found to be necessary is the adoption of a textual

strategy which acknowledges and accepts its own fragmentary nature. As

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1998) has noted, "...fragments are not simply a

necessity of which we make a virtue, a vicissitude of history, or a response to

limitations on our ability to bring the world indoors. We make fragments" (p.

19). This chapter is, at base, a collection of fragments culled from my original

ethnographic plan, my fieldnotes and my "homenotes," interview schedules,

responses, dreams—the effluence of ethnography, perhaps. The carnality

which subtends ethnographic work: that is what I present in this chapter. At

times, this chapter supports the academic, social scientific text which precedes

it. More often, it disrupts and unmasks the supertext's frailties, the rigid,

disciplining demands of academic writing.

To interweave the stuff of fieldwork with the stuff of academia, to fold together on paper the home and the field in a manner which approximates the way they have become increasingly commingled in my life, that is my goal in painting these fleshtones of the situation.

162 The Situation

Isla Mujeres is a small island located off the northeastern coast of the

state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. The penultimate territory to be accorded full

statehood (1974), Quintana Roo encompasses the north-eastern section of the

Yucatan Peninsula. The long, thin island is approximately 7.5 kilometers in

length and from .50 to 2 kilometers in width, with the pueblo (town) situated

at the northern tip, and with the majority of the tourist attractions, including

a national park, ranged out along the southwestern shore all the way to the

southern-most tip. There, from the highest point above sea level in the

Yucatan, an "ancient Mayan ruin" is slowly crumbling into the sea (West

Texas Geological Society, 1979, p. 25) (see figure 5.1).

Scattered along the length of the island are the homes of approximately

13,500 people, grouped into socio-economically defined colonias. As a general rule (which has a number of exceptions), the further south of town one lives, the less money one has to spend on housing—unless, that is, one's home is located on the prime beach-front property.

Fieldnotes 6/18J97; 1 pm

Well, I'm here now, in Isla Mujeres again. I got here yesterday at about

12 pm. I was in Canctin by 10 am, but it took me two hours to get to the island.

Unbelievable. So excruciating, really, to be on some kind of impromptu bus tour of Cancun, when all I wanted to do was race directly to Puerto Juarez and

163 Figure 5.1: Temple to Ixchel (with Pantera in the foreground)

164 the ferry. But, they have changed the taxi system since I was last here. While it only cost 100 pesos to get to the ferry before, now they've doubled it! It ends up being be a lot cheaper to take the hotel shuttle (50 pesos) and then a taxi to the port (20 pesos). Cheaper, but this results in a very long tour of the Cancun

Hotel Zone strip. Very long.

But it wasn't a total waste of time. It's the first time I've been down the entire strip from end to end, and it really is amazing: first, the broad avenue of billboards advertising what seems to be every restaurant, hotel and attraction there is to be offered to the arriving tourists. Then, across the bridge that spans the lagoon, and we were out onto Cancun Island proper. The small width of the crossing makes it actually seem more like one has just crossed over a lake and is still on the continent. It is so un-island-like that I'm not sure most people ever even realize that Cancun is an island.

The hotels are ranged along the stretch of beach-front property, whereas most restaurants, shopping malls, and bars are either ranged along the strip between the two one-way routes that run the length of the long, sandy spit, or they are nestled along on the lagoon/ landward side of the island. The hotels are what is visible on the route from the airport, and I sat in the van and watched them go by. They are strange, towering examples of concrete/glass architecture that call to mind both Disneyworld and the classic

Mayan step pyramids that adventurous tourists will discover further inland.

165 It is amazing to think that such giant structures could be built on such sandy foundations, particularly in the heart of hurricane country. In fact, I have read that this north-eastern tip of the Yucatan peninsula is the most likely spot in the world for a hurricane to pass through. With Cancun and Isla

Mujeres' situation at the spot where the mouths of the Gulf and the

Carribean kiss, and sliced apart from North to South by the Yucatan Channel, that statistic is not hard to believe. In fact, what seems hard to believe is that less than ten years after Gilberto tore his way through here, so little evidence of that storm's massive destruction remains. New construction ventures— with their steel girders and mounds of concrete blocks—break up the monotony of the precisely manicured lawns of the completed hotels and golf courses.

While I was entranced by the parade of international hotels, imagining the luxuries that they hid, I was not particularly surprised by the lack of the packs of roaming college students that I had seen everywhere the last time I was in Cancun: Spring Break '97. But what was even more interesting was the conversation that I could not help but eavesdrop on—one between two of my fellow passengers: a stylish older woman and her attractive, young-twenty- something granddaughter. Apparently, the grandmother had been to Cancun before and was now introducing the girl to the area. As we left the airport and started down along the boulevard of billboards, the granddaughter stared out the window, repeating aloud the names of the advertisers.

166 "McDonald's, Subway, Dominos, Outback Steakhouse, Burger King,

Wet 'N ' Wild. It's all American!" she exclaimed. "Isn't there anything

Mexican here? Why didn't we just go to Miami, or even Disneyland if it's going to be like this?"

As I listened, I looked out and noticed that there were billboards for

Mexican companies mixed in, too, but I understood how, for her, they would have just blended into the background of the golden arches and giant, steaming pepperoni pizzas.

"Well, it's not all like this," the grandmother replied, almost apologetically. "You'll see that as we start to travel. Cancun has one thing to offer, but there are so many places nearby that will give you what you want, if that's not it. Even the center of downtown Cancun will make you realize what a fantasy aU of this is." The grandmother made a sweeping gesture with her hand, indicating the huge hotels which were just beginning to crop up out of the wastelands of scrubby vegetation.

"I hope so," the daughter said with pout that I could hear.

The grandmother began to run through a list of the places they would be going later, and tried to make her granddaughter more interested in their first stop by detailing the amenities of the hotel where they would be staying, what turned out to be the palatial Turquesa. I turned my attention to making sure that the driver knew I wanted to be left off at the closest hotel to the port so that I could take a cab and finally make the crossing to Isla Mujeres. Soon,

167 the grandmother came to my aid, showing me just how poor my Spanish is.

And from it all, I learned a new word, "Claro." That was the driver's

response to the instructions she fired off at him, "Sure."

As the pair stepped out of the van, she turned to the girl. "That's one

place very close by. I think we should spend a few days there."

All in all, it was worth the 70 pesos and two hours, I guess. My first

ethnographic experience, you could say. Not such a bad start.

And then the closest thing, I guess, that I'll ever get to the

"ethnographer's classic tale of entry" to the site. I mean, after all, the first time

I came here, I was not "an ethnographer," just a tourist like the millions of

others who come down here each year, but that's a different story. I think that

it's better to say that I developed into an ethnographer while I was here— maybe that morning that Lorie and I first ran through the possibilities of doing that kind of research here. So, I guess it's really "the ethnographer's return" that I'm writing about now.

May I just interject here and say that it is damned hot right now. But, I have to sit outside, and I don't think the ceiling fan makes it much cooler inside my room anyway. And the fact is, with the amount of poison I just sprayed in there, I would probably die along with all of the animals that I'm trying to kill in there. What bothers me most are the tiny ants (hormigas) that seem to be everywhere, especially in the bed. They are so small that I had to look at one through the viewfinder of the camera to make sure it was an ant, and not a tiny spider-like creature. That would be really bad.

168 I, too, am covered with bug repellant, but I already have many bites,

probably ten. On my hands and feet mainly. After I wrote that sentence, I sat

and watched a mosquito trying to approach me, first my leg, and then my

arm. But it gave up, hovering about three inches away from my flesh before it

had to fly off to try a different spot. Believe me, he will have to wait at least

four or five hours before he gets another meal out of me.

Well, I just ventured into the house for a while to set things straight.

It's not really as bad in there as I thought. Still, with that poisonous

atmosphere, I can't imagine that much will survive, and I doubt anything

wiU want to go in there either, including the lizards—large iguanas and

sm aller qiiisas that look almost transparent in the light. They aren't on the

ceiling right now. In any case, I don't want to stay here for the next two weeks

fighting these bugs or covering myself with poison every six hours. That

could get expensive, and probably dangerous.

As I arrived at the port, the ferry for the island was just leaving, so I sat

down at the little snackbar by the dock and had a cold Dos Equis with salt and

lime. I missed the taste of that beer, different from American beers, lighter or something. Thirty minutes later, the boat was back, and I was getting on, into the air conditioning, with everyone else. Skimming over the mottled turquoise waters, we were there within 15 minutes. 1 still can't believe that I

169 will ever make that crossing with my eyes glued to the TV like most people do. The water is so sparkling, so beautiful; how could anyone stare at that stupid box?

And then, at last, the docking and the filing out into the heat, into the island. I went straight to Rolandi^’s whére I knew I would feel like a long-lost friend—even though only two months have passed since I last stepped on those tiles. It was great to see all those guys. "Qiierida!" Gerardo exclaimed with his smile. Gabi, Beto, Gilberto, and Roman were all there, too, and we exchanged greetings that were much less hurried than they would have been in an American restaurant. Everyone standing around and smiling, me too.

H ow nice to be back.

And then I came here, to Su Casa, a place where kitchens and their utensils are included in each habitation, so that you'll feel like it really is

"Your House," just like the name says. You know, "M i casa es su casa." They even have a painted tile plaque that says that, hanging by a nail on the hut place that seems to be the office. Su Casa is a bungalow-style hotel about a quarter mile down the Sac Bajo beach from Cristalmar Hotel, where I stayed on vacation. In essence, they are small cottages on a seaweedy beach. So far, I have seen some of the people who are staying here. They are mainly couples, three young ones and an older couple. I feel like I'm in Honeymoon Hell. The place where I am now has all these ants; the corrugated roof does not completely join with the walls—enter the iguana—and the ceiling is pretty low.

170 How strange to really be back. It seems both bigger and smaller at the same time. Looking for faces I recognized, I saw many, but the hotel seems like it's at least five miles from the town. I think I could start to feel really isolated out here. I think I need to move downtown. While having dinner, I met a couple of "travelers": Chris and Sue. Funny how people who would probably never be friendly in their daily lives suddenly become almost gregarious on vacation, especially with a "fellow countryman" who is alone.

They said they had "gone to the Yucatan" and then returned to Isla Mujeres for a few days before they went home.

Chris was so mindful of not being labeled a "tourist" that he said he had resisted telling his friends that he was travelling to Cancun—and thus evoking sugarplum images of all-inclusive resorts. He insisted it was a trip to

"The Yucatan." (Which admittedly, sounds romantic to me.) To him,

"Cancun" was too touristy sounding. And it's true that he and his wife had spent the great bulk of their time in the peninsula beyond the plastic city.

They seemed to have seen it all: from pyramids to pueblos. I look forward to

Merida, a place with a history—unlike Cancun. It sounds beautiful, too. I think it will be white. The sun will glare on the stone, maybe marble, walls. There will be palm trees. (How romantic.)

Chris and Sue were interesting people in that they articulated such a distinction between tourists and travellers, a subject which Püotta and I have discussed before. They were adamantly travelers, which means (to them) that they do a lot of background research before taking a trip, and then they try to

171 use the native language when possible. To me, such a strategy seems only reasonable, all tourists/ travelers should do that. But the fact is, most don't.

Some never even think about it. Some are just lazy. And maybe some, like me (I hate to admit), get a weird sense of pleasure in the disorientation and mystery that results when one is set down in a place—maybe only four or five hours after leaving home—that one knows almost nothing about. Truthfully,

I wasn't even sure of the name or location of this island when I boarded the plane with my family not so long ago. There's something about that experience that reminds me of opening up a novel...one that's new so new (at least to me) that I know nothing more than the title and the author's name on the spine, not like a classic where you might even know the tragic ending before picking it up. I hope my body adjusts to the heat soon. It's killing me right now....I hope that I don't get bitten by these bugs much more. I can see that the heat and the bugs are quickly becoming my main concerns. I have got to get acclimated.

Homenotes 11/5197; 1:15 am

...How much has come to pass since I drafted that first abjection paper so quickly that I couldn't believe it myself. It really took me by storm. Amazed and reproached me. The abandonment of the medical project. The rejection of Venezuela for the time being. The pursuance of the methodological subject. And then, directly, the trip to Mexico—the "vacation to get away from it all." Now, it seems I just jumped right into it.

172 The morning on the pier, after "the night of the comet/' when I came

to an idea of how to make it work—to return to the Isla. With Lorie pushing

me, questioning me, supplying vital points, playing devil's advocate. The

inception of a dissertation on a dock in the Caribbean—the rising sun's rays

scattered over the ruins of the temple of Ixchel. The taste of rime on my lip,

conceiving of the conditions for the possibility. And that was a beautiful time.

Epifanic, if there is such a word.

Now 1 sit back in the familiar world that 1 lamented not being in in my

fieldnotes. 1 sit at my desk, feet up, computer—wonder of wonders—it even

plays a Gypsy Kings CD that wül epitomize for me that second trip to México.

Yes, here it is gray. It is cold, and the leaves brown and tumble, fall to the

earth, return to the nitrogen cycle....Here it is always gray. A purgatory.

Waiting for the spring to come, and it's only November. No wonder so many people get depressed here. They forget that somewhere, the sun shines brightly, warmly, when the snow is its deepest here, the sky its most opaque gray.

It's true; these last two trips were of such great importance. 1 learned so much. Yes, they were short. They were not 6 or 12 month ventures. They were trials and they have taught me much. Trials, in many senses of the word.... Think of all that has happened, all that has changed. All that means something to me now, which meant nothing to me earlier. Had no significance. Like this, my passion. Now 1 have one. 1 feel sorry for those who have none, or pretend to have one, or have one imposed upon them, and

173 live dull lives attempting to reach a goal they care really nothing for. What

such a goal holds is nothing. To be able to follow my bliss: this is something

to thank Pilotta for. That's what advisors are supposed to do.

Homenotes 4/16/97

Yesterday, I met with Joe. He told me he thinks 1 found "my Bali," a

Geertz joke, I guess. Yes, Isla Mujeres may be an o.k. place to spend some

more time....I wonder what's been written in the academic world about the

island? I'm tempted to find out right now...I don't think it will be a lot. So,

being the impulsive self that I am, I am now checking the net. Just checking

Oscar. I came up with nothing? Does this place exist? What could be better,

really? I mean—"untouched soil"? Does that exist in 1997? Did no one ever

find Isla Mujeres "worthy"? Well, o.k., now I'm finding some stuff, mainly old, about Quintana Roo, and more about Yucatan. But nothing too striking

in Oscar, Anthropology, Eric or the 2 Latin American data bases (both as a subject and a word)....There is some stuff on the Internet...200+ sites... but it's mostly tourism advertising. So, it's clear that they haven't been "subjected" to ethnography, at least not lately. I really find this hard to believe. I wonder if I would find it under "Island of Women"? I doubt that. So, maybe Joe's right...

"m y Bali."

174 Fieldnotes 9/15/97

A s far as fieldnotes are concerned, Fve been pretty bad this time. I just

haven't felt like writing and I really haven't been spending so much time

alone, either. I've got much more recorded data however, of many different

people, and many different places. In fact, I only have about three and one-

half hours of tape left out of the twenty I brought down. I'm actually afraid

that I might run out of tape before I leave because tonight is the fiesta for

Independence Day, and I want to film at least part of that and I have more

than one interview scheduled for each day of the next week: a travel agent, a

doctor, a water-sports service provider, a bartender, a restaurant manager, and

some other people, too. This on top of the interviews I've already done with

Alvaro, Chucho, Willie, Vincente, and some tourists. All in all, this trip has

been much different than the first two, and some very strange things have

happened.

Some possible reasons for the differences:

1. There are a lot fewer tourists here right now than in March or June,

so those who are here, including me, are easier to remember and recognize.

Also, people seem to remember me from my earlier visits—my face, at least,

seems familiar perhaps.

2. The camera, when I take it out of the bag, excites more interest rather

than fear in people, and its novelty and obvious technological advancement seems to reify my claim to be conducting "tin investigaciôn para mi tesis par la universidad. " When I had my old camera, people seemed to run away;

175 now, they come closer, wanting to see and know about this new toy. Even tourists have interest. One isleno has already asked if I will sell it to him, and

Beto wants to buy the 35 mm. I suppose I will sell both of them—why not? I can always get new ones. Many people have also asked me to bring them things for which they will reimburse me: tennis shoes (always white Nikes or

Reboks), certain music CDs, a postcard from the coming family trip to Israel,

T-shirts, watches, and particular toys. I don't have any problem with doing these things. That's the least I can do.

Fieldnotes 6119/97

Last night, Gabi, Gilberto and I discussed further the kind of research

I'm doing and its egalitarian nature. They, of course, think that an equal exchange is good—and I explained that those who work with me will be compensated somehow. This is going to require a good sum of money. But more than money, too. I know a lot of people will be willing to help—if I can pay or benefit them some other way. And anyway, that's pretty central to social action research.

Homenotes 11/9/97; 2:20 am

Ethnography—truly it is collaborative... with co-laborers... colaboradores.... It's just that people haven't always admitted that. It goes even to the extent that one needs people who are "uninvolved" with the study to use as sounding boards, as checks to one's perceptions...and then that

176 leads to the fact that there is an audience. Of course, the work is collaborative

with "the informants," but has anyone theorized on relationship with "the

informed"? And what does that negotiation entail? Is anyone talking about what my audience is expecting out of me...beyond providing a rational for the grant monies or for their seal of approval (i.e., the diploma)? Knowledge?

Understanding? Excitement? Interest? Approval? Perhaps some ruffled feathers? Well, feather ruffling might be only second-best to all the other stuff, but second best is still pretty good.

Homenotes 10/13/1998; 1:35 am

....I will move on. Finishing my dissertation is a big deal now.

Suddenly, a miscellaneous collection of papers stuck in a folder has become my dissertation. That doesn't sound organic, but then again it does.

Conceived on that dock, the thing has started kicking, the first signs that it is aHve and not just some formless lump of flesh. A being with a will, a developing personality—in this case, a very playful one.

For some reason, I have just felt like dancing, and its lasted now for five days or so. Maybe it's that I have been sick for so long without really even realizing it. I feel alive and hyper-sensitized. The ordinary no longer familiar....

177 Homenotes 6/17/98; 10:40 pm

...Talked with Gabi and Beto last night. Beto is such a sweetheart... really. And so cute, so like a little brother. A real friend. I feel such an affinity for Jorge and his wife, Marlene, too. Good people. Pantera is another one. Our yearly chats by the rocks on the Caribbean side. Always the same rocks.

Driving in his taxi. Pantera. Our talks. His explanations for all of the things I don't understand. We have a shared history now. The night of the comet with Gabi and Pantera, and Jose Luis. How we stayed out all night long, talking on the malécon and passing around the cagiiamas of beer. How odd that they have become part of my world so suddenly, I suppose as all people do. It is always a sudden thing, even if it seems slow and drawn out...the initial contact is immediate. That first point of contact. And for some reason, now I think of the Hotel Trinidad in Merida. What a hellish place that was— the lobby with all those creepy babydoll heads piled in a mound as though they made up some kind of statue. Some art.

Homenotes 2/8/98; 11:46 pm

...Just got a phone call. I guess a boat has been lost at sea there...five fishermen...the boat and two bodies have been found. The others are still missing. Gabi says, "Too many people are waiting in the street for news." The navy is out searching for them. One of the missing is a friend of his. His wife and child anxiously wait in the street for the news. This makes my problems

178 seem so small, inconsequential. Strangely, it seems they have heard nothing of "El Nino" until now. Media event of the season, and the people who really need to know about it are left in the dark until it's too late. I explained this weird weather pattern as best I could. It was a sad conversation...full of unspoken desperation.

....I suppose I shouldn't make any decisions about the amount of fieldwork I have left to do until I return to the island. Sometimes I want to be done, finished. Sometimes I think I still have a lot to leam and do....

....I just skimmed through my fieldnotes. I have such a different relationship to that place intellectually now that I've done so much academic reading about it. But shit! I had forgotten the pain that is associated with that place. The loneliness. It shines out brightly in the notebooks. The feeling of being act off. Cut off from the people whose problems seem to be so much greater, or something, than my own.

Fuck. I've really done myself in this time. It's more than just moral, it's ethical, too. What was I thinking? What can I really do for anyone?

And does anybody even fucking care, know, think anything about my moral dilemmas...my ethical dilemmas, maybe yes. Maybe that's the problem.

That's the problem with ethical. I'm so cynical. Easy to say, "I mean nothing to these people." That is ABTECT. And that is abject. To think in those terms about all of this is wrong. I know that a lot of it has to do with what I might call the "objectification" of Isla Mujeres that I have not been able to avoid in the last 5 months of absence.

179 To be separated from the living, changing, moving place and people.

To connect with it only by phone, blind. And then, reading all those books

and articles made it into an even more fixed, still, distant object. Reified.

Made it into just that: an "it."

H istory

The local history of Isla Mujeres and the adjacent coastal area has been

extremely well-documented, thanks to the efforts of C. Fidel Villanueva

Madrid, the official historian of the island, and until recently, its mayor.

According to his chronologies, the island boasts fourteen centuries of history,

its temple dating back to the the the fourth century A.D.

Mayan History

While the island's main economic orientations are now tourism and

fishing, which are certainly interrelated in more than one way, the earliest-

known human use of the island was rather different, expressed indirectly by

its modem name. The Maya considered Isla Mujeres to be an island sacred to

their goddesses Aixchel (Ixchel), Ixchebeliax, Ixbunic, and Ixbunita, who

signify Love, Fertility, the Moon, and the Aurora, respectively. Although the

Maya do not appear to have inhabited the island, they placed stone statues and bas-reliefs depicting these goddesses in the temple complex which they had erected on the southern end of the island (Villanueva Madrid, 1994, pp.

180 2-3). Although some tourist guidebooks capitalize on the lure of exoticism by

claiming that human sacrifices were made there, I have found no historical

evidence to support that claim.

The Conquest

It is generally agreed by scholars that, upon his arrival on the island in

1517, Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba found the island inhabited only by these female statues, and he assumed the island was dedicated to women, thus giving it the appellation of "Isla Mujeres": The Island of Women

(Villanueva M adrid, 1994, p. 1).

However, the greater historical significance of Isla Mujeres is rarely noted today. According to an extensive historical investigation conducted by

SaviUe (1918), Isla Mujeres can legitimately lay claim to the title of being the first point of contact between the Spanish conquistadors and the land which is now considered Mexican soil. Having examined the itinerary of Cordoba's armada and many other primary accounts, I must agree. Isla Mujeres was the site where Europe met Mexico, inaugurating an era of cultural mixture which continues to this day.

The Nineteenth Century

The Nineteenth Century is another period of time in the island's history which seems to be of continuing importance to the people of the island, as well as a means of drawing tourists. At some point during this

181 period, Fennm Mundaca, a slave trader and a pirate, stumbled upon the island while being pursued by authorities. Charmed by the island, and even more so by a woman who lived there. La Triguena (The Brunette), Mundaca chose to make the island his home. In order to win her love, he built a hacienda, including a stone house (which is still standing) and a beautiful circular garden, as well as erecting impressive gateways which bear her portrait, laying extensive walkways, and sinking freshwater wells (see figure

5.2).

Despite his efforts, as the legend goes. La Triguena would not accept

Mundaca's love, preferring a man without such a negative reputation. While some islanders and guidebooks claim that he was eventually driven mad by his unrequited love, killing his rival, others say he merely died an unhappy, lonely man. An air of mystery still surrounds the overgrown hacienda, which is now open to the public for the admission price of 10-15 pesos. Not only do some islanders describe the hacienda as haunted by spirits, all of the people who spoke to me of Hacienda Mundaca in 1997 also recounted the story of two teenage lovers who hanged themselves there after a fight with their parents, an event which had occurred exactly one year prior to my visit in March 1997. Wooden crosses still mark the trees on which they died, while carved messages from family members cover the bark on their trunks. A small stone shrine and candles stand nearby.

182 Figure 5.2: The Gardens of Hacienda Mundaca

183 T ourism

An important part of Isla Mujeres' historical and present situations

directly relates to its 40-year orientation as a site for tourism. Tourist

development in Isla Mujeres long predated the goverrunent-planned

development of Cancun into a resort city, which began in the early 1970s.

According to Lilia Perez-Chavolla, the highly financed development of

mainland Cancun retarded "development" in Isla Mujeres, partially due to

the logistics of transporting building materials to the island. Difficulties

securing an adequate freshwater supply may also have played a role in this

process. Thus, one might say that Isla Mujeres has become something of a

tourist backwater, providing less expensive, older hotels for tourists who

originally intend to stay in Cancun but who are unable to secure lodgings

there.

Internet Advertising

On the other hand, business owners m Isla Mujeres have made some attempts to capitalize on its sleepy, small-town atmosphere, using the

Internet to attract tourists who seek a more relaxed pace. In fact, the Internet appears to be a popular forum for people and institutions who wish to introduce the world to Isla Mujeres. Despite the island's lack of presence on library research data bases, an Internet keyword search using "Isla Mujeres" conducted on the Infoseek browser, 18 May 1997, resulted in 445 sites listed.

184 A cursory overview revealed several different categories of websites,

dominated primarily by advertising, but also including miscellaneous pages,

such as one posted by an amateur photographer who was displaying a photo

of an island sunset. The main Internet advertisers are the Mexican tourism ministry, private travel agencies, web magazines,' local hotel and restaurant owners, watersports concessions, and private individuals offering land or homes for sale or lease in a classified form. There is also a site which caters to a nudist community. These Internet sites are one means by which the people of Isla Mujeres present their home to the rest of the world. (In some cases, it's also a way in which they are presented without their knowledge or consent.)

The more traditional forms of advertising, including brochures distributed on the island, are another.

Tourist Attractions

Tourist attractions can be grouped according to four different themes:

Mayan culture, pirate lore, nature, and sporting activities While a Mayan flavor pervades the island, the altar to Ixchel was severely damaged by

Hurricane Gilbert several years ago, and it is not nearly as impressive as are some of the other archeological sites in the surrounding area. In fact, I have heard that what remains now is merely a modem reconstruction of the original temple.

A second theme, the island's role as a haven for "pirates," is represented by Hacienda Mundaca, which I described above. A third and very

185 important theme concerns the natural wonders and animals that surround

the island. There are numerous fish and shark shows (where tourists are

invited to swim with large nurse sharks) as well as the Tortuga Granja, a national tortoise preserve and turtle breeding farm run by SEMARNAP. In

the past, tourists could pay to swim with the turtles, but the government has

long since put a stop to that. In addition, El Garrafon, a national snorkeling park, draws nature- and sport-oriented tourists, but there are many other good snorkeling spots in addition to the park, especially out on the nearby reefs. Finally, water sports, such as windsurfing, jetskiing, and various types of fishing, draw tourists. Of course, there are also those tourists who merely desire a quiet tropical beach to lie on for a week or two, and Isla Mujeres has plenty of those.

Kinds of Tourists

As far as the tourist trade is concerned, there seem to be several groups of tourists based on the length of their stay. First, there those who consider

Isla Mujeres their main destination and who secure lodgings there. Also, there are people who divide their time between Isla Mujeres and another resort area, such as Cancun or Cozumel. The third and seemingly largest group is comprised of those tourists who have lodgings in Cancun and visit

Isla Mujeres as a day trip. These trips are generally pre-paid package tours which originate in Cancun. They may have snorkeling and scuba diving as

186 their main purpose, or they may be "all-you-can-drink" party boats which

dock at beach-front restaur an t-bars. Oftentimes, these party boats include

visits to the tourist attractions mentioned above.

The topography of the island and the location of the town appear to

present a problem for the tourist trade in Isla Mujeres. While the center of

commerce is located at one end of the island, the great bulk of attractions are

situated at the largely undeveloped end. This problem is augmented by the

fact that the day-trip and party boats frequently use a direct approach from the

hotel district of Cancun to the island's beach-front attractions, thereby

funnelling tourists away from the town and the businesses that could benefit

from their trade. That is not to say that no tourists arrive in the town's ferry port, but there is a large group of people who never see the town (and other beautiful parts of the island) because of the five- or six-mile distance between the attractions and the town.

Fieldnotes 3/19/98; 9:10 am

The tourists from Lake Tahoe whom I met on the snorkeling trip yesterday were unhappy with their day trip to Isla Mujeres: it took too long to get from the hotel to the island—their waiting plus the crossing took four hours! Had they come alone, it would have taken less than one hour to get here, and it would have cost a lot less money. The tour left from Tortuga

187 Plaza in Cancun and docked at the downtown muelle. They said that they had really wanted to go snorkeling, and they finally just left the rest of the tour to find some snorkeling on their own.

Fieldnotes 3/22/98

I finally with met with Lupita, a shop-owner who has cancelled our scheduled interview several times—always "too busy right now." Walking down the street, I saw her, and that was the right time. So, on her terms this time, we met and "chatted." She bought me a coke and showed me around her shop. Little by little, she's building a hotel out back, and she says she thinks it will be ready for me to stay in the next time I come down. Once again, no recording device, just my brain, but I did gain some valuable insights from her.

1. The name for the day trippers is "la poblaciôn flotante" whereas the overnight visitors are called "visitantes diaries."

2. These visitantes diaries are generally the better consumers when it comes to volume and cost. They seem to buy at night, and usually at the end of their trip. They may wander into shops in the daytime, and then they return later to buy after having checked out the other shops. (This situation holds true for the location of her shop: on Hidalgo, the main street running through the town. Yet, I wonder if this is true for the shops on the malécon, the ones that daytrippers wiU first encounter as they leave the pier.)

188 3. As far as nationality is concerned, Lupita says that Americans and

Japanese are her best customers. They are more willing to pay a higher price, and they don't try to bargain as much as the Europeans do. The Italians, she says, are the worst: they neither want to pay a lot, nor to buy a lot. They want

"gifts," as she says. They start by offering half the marked price, and will rarely offer much more. That's o.k., she says, in some places, but for her, it's terrible because her prices are fair. She doesn't mark a five peso ashtray up to 150 pesos like some people do. Furthermore, all of her merchandise has a price marked on it. It's the same price for everybody. A lot of other stores don't do that. They set the prices individually, based on the way a buyer looks and their nationality.

4. Another thing she says is that a lot of places don't pay their employees a fair wage. She pays her shop girls three times the minimum wage because that's only fair. To her, the minimum wage is a joke—no one could live alone on that, much less support a family. That's the reason that the streets are so dirty: the government won't pay anyone enough to make them want to do that job, and on top of that, there are no trash cans.

Some Context on My Presence

As mentioned earlier, my purpose for first going to Isla Mujeres was a family vacation. As is typical of a tourist, I arrived there with no knowledge of the island's history, and little knowledge of Spanish (which is still widely spoken in transactions between tourists and locals, as opposed to the English

189 that seems to predominate in similar transactions in Cancun). My experience

with Mexican culture was a bit more extensive than my vocabulary was. This

was mainly a result of school knowledge and, more importantly, a number of

close friendships with Mexican nationals whom I met in high school, college,

and graduate school.

In fact, these relationships were the basis of what Spanish

communication skills I did have, skills which I once characterized in a

conversation as those of being "able to make people happy or angry." Upon

hearing this, my companion, a waiter, asked me, "And how do you make

people angry?" At this invitation to trot out my swearing vocabulary, I first

apologized for what I was about to say, and then began to repeat the words my

friends had taught me fifteen years before. The first few epithets, which I had heard repeated in my first days on the island, tripped off of my tongue fairly easily, and earned me the response accorded a puppy performing a simple trick.

And then, somehow, my long-term recall was sparked, and I repeated in a low voice a phrase I had heard only a few times in my life. The shock with which this utterance was greeted gave me a good idea of why I had heard the phrase so few times. Looking around in horror to see if anyone in the crowded beach-front disco had overheard, my companion shushed me. And yet, after these words had been said, it seemed as though a new openness came to settle upon our continuing conversation. As opposed to an institutionally granted letter of recommendation, I would say that some

190 entrée to a subsequently important group was facilitated by means of a few choice words conjured up from a distant past.

The group to which this friend belongs, an occupationally and socially based group of waiters who work in one of the island's finer restaurants, has proven to be a great source of other personal contacts and is currently my greatest human "resource" on the island. I first became acquainted with some of the group's members as a customer in the restaurant, but after only a short period of a few days, I came to regard these chabos as my friends.

This interaction was characteristic of my first experiences in Isla

Mujeres in several ways; the issues of language and communication are particularly important. This may well hinge upon the way I have identified myself. Although I cannot be certain of how others perceived me and my behavior, I do know how I articulated my bearing in the world. In response to questions regarding my occupation, I described myself as a university student of communication and teacher of telecommunication research and history.

Because of this, conversations often turned to the topic of media services available on the island....

Fieldnotes 3/22/98

I went to the Palacio Municipal because Tarzan told me there was a photo exhibit there. I must have missed it by a day, because they sent me to the Archiva Municipal where the photos were taken after the show, and the

Cuba Ron, a bar where photos are displayed as well. There, I met Victor. He

191 told me all about the photos there. Most are of the restaurant owner's family

and a few of the island, and tons of Fidel and Che, and Cuba in general. Hence

the bar's name, or vice versa. Victor told me a lot about his life and

adventures. I couldn't record this interview either because he said that the

way I had come in and proceeded to act was the same as the way CIA agents

do it. He had his doubts as to whether I weren't working for them. (When I

mentioned this to a tourist friend later, he said he could understand that, and

I would think so too if I could only see myself from the outside..."kinda like a

cop. You ask too many questions.")

....I think of the S.S. (Social Science) and its long and sordid association

with government spy agencies worldwide—not the least of which being that of certain (famous) ethnographers in Yucatan in the earlier part of this century.

I had no idea I had such a bearing. The camera and the desire to record things must reinforce that notion—that suspicion—too. And then there is this island's singular relationship with Cuba...that's becoming more and more evident.

....Related to the topic of my occupational and educational interests was the question of whether I knew how to speak Spanish. This was a question to which the answer changed over the course of my time there. In the beginning, my only answer could be "no," or at best, "no, but I know some

French and Italian, and I'm trying to learn Spanish. They seem similar."

Fortunately, this type of response may have presented me in the role of an

192 interested learner, and conversations often slipped into discussions of equivalent words in Spanish, French, Italian, and English.

In addition, my experience as a teacher of English as a Second Language enabled me to explain the grammar and pronunciation of phrases requested by my Spanish-speaking conversation partners, thus allowing for some kind of equality in the exchange of information. By the time I left Isla Mujeres, my friends had helped me move from a vague remembrance of "how to make people angry" to a tentative ability to answer the language question in

Spanish by sajdng, "I only speak a little Spanish, but I’m going to leam more soon," and maybe even continue in polite—if halting—conversation. I had also learned a few phrases that could make people really angry.

The occupational orientation of my main group of interlocutors also played a role in the salience of language as a conversational theme. Because the restaurant is owned by an Italian businessman, and it caters to an international clientele, an ability to speak some Italian, French, German, and

English is a condition of employment. In addition, the waiters see both monetary and social benefits in becoming as fluent in the languages of their customers as possible. Thus, our fragmentary knowledges of these languages seemed to compliment each other's and provided topics of common interest.

Besides the focus on language, another aspect of the "swearing incident" seems to characterize the interactions I engaged in most frequently in Isla Mujeres. That would be related to my age and that of my companions.

193 affecting the time and location of our interactions. Like me, most—if not all—

of the eight group members are in their mid-twenties or early thirties. And,

despite the different languages we speak and cultures in which we were

raised, we enjoy a common form of socializing...hanging out in bars and

listening to music, watching people.

In fact, over the course of the week-and-a-half I spent with this group

on my first trip to the island, I would have to say that I was given the

unofficial tour of Isla Mujeres' nightclub scene. This included everything

from hole-in-the-wall cheap beer bars and the salsa club frequented safely

only by locals (and their friends), to the tourist-filled hotel bars and the

American-disco playing nightclub on the beach. La Palapa. On my last night

there, we went to the one of the only bars on the island that has a pool table.

At the end of the night, Gerardo turned to me and smiled, "Well, now you’ve

seen how we live. This is our life. Do you like it?"

Although spending evenings with this company was enjoyable in and

of itself, it also served as my introduction to many other people, including

taxi-drivers and bartenders. Many of these are people with whom I have

subsequently interacted, both on a social and on a commercial level, with and

without the main group of waiters. Our group encounters with members of

these other groups were both planned and haphazard, but they often lasted

for several hours and resulted in my learning quite a bit of vocabulary as well as other cultural information. It was on one such long night of drinking that my companions begin to construct a new identity for me, choosing to caU me

194 "Julia" because "Jill" was too foreign, and the names are pretty similar. After that night, I essentially became known as "Julia" in Isla Mujeres, a name which was readily accepted as an alternative by most who asked my name and found it too much trouble to say.

Although I was introduced to many groups of people by members of the main contact group, I also became acquainted with individuals and groups on my own. This seemed to happen more as I became a more familiar face on the island. These included people who were shop owners, itinerant musicians, and sports instructors / guides, as weU as tourists from all over the

United States, Canada, and Europe. Based on these encounters and those with the main group of waiters, I developed a rough framework of the kinds of people with whom I would be interacting in the course of this project:

Groups Based on Habitation Pattern:

1. People bom in Isla Mujeres (the "true islenos")

2. Mexican nationals who have relocated to Isla Mujeres for

employment in various sectors, including aU economic

levels: musicians, waiters, doctors, and lawyers

a. those who live and work in Isla Mujeres

b- those who live in Isla Mujeres and work in Cancun

c. those who live in Cancun and work in Isla Mujeres

3. Mexican tourists

195 4. Foreign nationals

a. "resident gringos" (after Van Den Berghe, 1994)

b. tourists

c. non-tourists

Main Groups Based on Occupations Related to Tourism: .

1) waiters and cooks/restaurant staff

2) taxi drivers

3) scuba/snorkeling guides/ instructors

4) musicians

5) shop keepers

6) clerks

7) fisherm an

8) bartenders

9) tour agency workers

Fieldnotes 3/22/98

While sitting in an outdoor cafe this afternoon, waiting for an

interview (which didn't happen), I was approached by a borracho, who asked

me for a cigarette. I gave him one, and he asked me what I was writing, "a

diary?" "No," I said, "fieldnotes." He could speak some English without a very thick accent, and he asked me if I were studying life on the island. When

I told him yes, he asked if I wanted to know about the life of a drunk on the island. He told me that he has lived here for seven or eight years and that he is drunk all of the time. As he was telling me this, a little old man came up to

196 us. He was selling Oaxaca mezcal from a little gourd, and he asked the drunk if he wanted to buy some—a little wooden cupful. The drunk said, "No mezcal, compadre, I only drink beer.' The drunk made me a little nervous, to say the least, and maybe he got that idea, because he soon moved on. He told me I could find him anytime I wanted—in the street by the main pier. He wants me to write his life story. He says it has all of the things that people want to hear...all of the twists and turns, great luck, and terrible misfortune. It could make us rich. We'll see about that.

Giving up on the interview for the time being, I then went to a travel agency to see if I could set up a time to meet with the owner for a second time.

It was closed, but as I was looking in the window (and taking advantage of the shelter that its awning provided from the rain), a middle-aged American man came and told me not to feel too bad—that agency probably couldn't help me anyway...it didn't seem to him that there was a lot that they could help anybody with. He, for one, had had to go to Cancun to get his flight reservations changed.

We started talking, and he told me that he is a bartender from Texas.

This is his first time back to Isla Mujeres in twelve years. He came in on a yacht with some friends who are looking for a place to settle down and buy a little piece of property. For that reason, he and his friends talk a lot about the •

"development" of tourism sites...as he says, "You want to be just ahead of the development of tourism and its overflow....If you're going to invest some of your time—a part of your life—and develop your own little piece of a place, you want it to be a nice place." He mentioned Key West. Years ago, he had

197 loved the place; Isla Mujeres reminded him of it. But on this last trip, they had stopped in the Keys again, and he had wanted to set sail immediately....

"It's become a caricature of itself...the Disneyworld version of Key West, but in Key West." He says he's afraid that the Isla is heading in the same direction. I've heard that before.

When he asked me what I was doing, I told him I was writing my dissertation about tourism. "Really," he exclaimed, "so do you hate tourists, too?" With that, he stepped up under the awning, and our conversation began in earnest. What do you say to such a point-blank question? The pitfalls there are numerous. "Well," I replied, carefully choosing my words, "it depends on how you define 'tourist.'" Then, I talked about respecting other cultures and not acting like a foreign country is some kind of amusement park constructed solely for the tourist's whims and pleasures. He clearly liked that response, telling me of the philosophy of his own little travelling group:

"We try to pass through a place without leaving too much of a wake." I like that expression.

He wants to be a part of the work, and I think that's great. I look forward to talking with him more. He seems to be a natural storyteller. He says he's been staying at the Vistalmar, a larger hotel on the malécon w hich has a great view of the harbour and the street, and he sees the greatest things from its third-floor veranda...it's like watching a constantly evolving play...and sometimes a very comical one. He says I should come and check it out some time. Just the other day, he saw a tourist family walking down the

198 Street, middle-aged father out front, leading the little band of explorers. The father was looking all around, at all the people, the signs, the passing cars...at everything except the path directly in front of him. After a block or two, he walked smack into a post—so hard that he was knocked to the ground. Harry laughed with genuine appreciation at the scene, the father getting up woozily, rubbing his head, looking sheepish in front of the whole family. "That's the thing," says Harry. "It's exemplary of the way tourists are in a lot of aspects.

They get so caught up in all that is new, surrounding them, that they forget that they are a part of the scene too, that they are moving through it. And that's when the trouble starts—not just for them, but for all the people around them ."

El Présidente

Fieldnotes 6/25/97

Waiting for the earliest ferry, I met a couple of tourists and their daughter from Texas. We aU waited on the pier for the ferry, the sun rising in the east over the island, the early morning haze rising off the sea, the moon dimming away into nothing in the west. They said they were returning to the island after 17 years, and they told me that El Présidente had been closed then, as it remains closed now. Seventeen years ago...that's since 1980.1 find that hard to believe, but that is what they said (see figure 5.3).

Warm sun, golden sun, and that double helix, infinitely washing the sand into a long strand out past El Présidente, mammoth hull of a tourist

199 og

Figure 5.3: Hotel El Présidente industry—washed up on the rocky point. Looming like a ghost on the

horizon, it needs a new name, a new history, a new experiential moment

happening. That would have to be a part of island "renovation"/

"restoration" or whatever. Or, just get rid of it...it could be a productive site

for something else. Now, its just a place to hang out, get high, get it on with

your neighbor's wife.

Fieldnotes 3/22/98

Yesterday, I got up kinda late and went out to meet Beto at the

restaurant in front of my hotel. We climbed up the slanted side of El

Présidente. Being afraid of heights, I was so scared, but the wall is constructed in such a way that there is a kind of a channel, about three feet deep, that we climbed up through, and it is bordered by little walls that one can grab with each hand if one stoops over. The problem is that the concrete floor of the channel is very smooth and slippery. Man, I wanted to turn back the whole way, but I just kept thinking, "If I slip, I won't free-fall and die. I'll just slide down this chute and be banged up....that is, if I don't fall over the side....And whatever you do, don't look down, do not look over the side, to see the sea crashing on the rocks below."

It was worth it. I shot some of the most beautiful video from the roof, and Beto took some still shots with a 35 mm camera. I don't know how long we were up there. Maybe 20 minutes before the guard, whom Beto knows, came up by the stairwell and told us that we had to leave. We went back

201 down to the ground by the stair route, as well; too bad we couldn't have come

up that way, but I guess he would have seen us then, and we never would

have caught such a lovely view.

Down on the ground, the superior guard reprimanded us, told us we

should have asked for permission. As Beto said later, "They never give

permission, so why ask anyway? Better to just do it and then say you're sorry.

And besides, we still have the shots! Not too many people have pictures like

these." Sounds true to me. I guess the guards were particularly mad because a

journalist recently snuck up there and did some kind of photo expose on the

general destruction inside. That was their big problem with us...that we were

taking pictures. They didn't know about the video, and that's probably a very

good thing.

It was weird up there on the roof. It's probably the best view on the

island. You could really charge for those top floor rooms, and yet the place has

stood empty for years. Stripped of all its bathroom fixtures, wiring and phone jacks ripped out of the walls, and some of the huge windows broken, all that

remains are the smooth tiled floors and the walls that hold the place up. The

old key tags (with the name of the hotel and the room numbers) are being

used by another place now. 1 wonder who has the toilets, the sinks in their

homes? It really reminds me of a sunken shipwreck in a way. The water tanks

and valves on the roof made me think of that. 1 bet it's scary at night there,

the rubbish of beer bottles and food wrappers strewn all about. I've heard

that's where the islanders go when they want to do something that no one ought to know about. I hear it would only cost about $150,000 to demolish.

202 After that amazing experience, we went and had a coke, and we did some language study. Beto's been studying English in Cancun, and he had some questions about the tenses. I diagrammed them for him and gave him the papers. Those tense diagrams always seem to help: showing on the diagram the period of time to which a particular tense refers...somewhere between the past, the present, and the future. I wouldn't mind teaching

English as a Second Language here. Well, I guess here it would be "as a

Foreign Language." But that seems to be a real lack—language classes, and the demand seems high. In order to study, islanders must cross to Cancun, as well as pay for tuition and books. If the class were to meet three times a week, as they usually do, the transportation (ferry and bus) alone would end up costing around 150 pesos: worth about a week's work at minimum wage...before tuition and books That gets pretty expensive, and its rather inconvenient, rather time-consuming. A little school would be just perfect here.

Fieldnotes 6/29/97; 9:20 pm

I constantly flit back and forth between confidence and utter dismay- complete dejection-fear that it will not work, or that I'm an idiot, not smart enough to pull this off—without the language skills necessary to the task, or that I've already made some fatal mistake that will only make itself apparent in its true form after it is too late to turn back. My life is being disrupted, too.

In complete, unalterable ways. I am heading down a new path all of a sudden, one with no sign posts, uncharted by map. Where will it lead?

203 It seems that, if you want something, you need only to reach out and

take it. No questions asked, allowing no fear to interfere. And yet, to do this,

one must be fully aware of what one wants. And this requires careful thought

and a certain amount of information. I do not feel as though I have enough

information to know what I want. Thus, reaching out and taking it is

extremely difficult.

I write this as I sit on the patio of the hotel, a floor above the street. It's

a quarter to 10 pm, and the night is humid; mopeds and taxis buzz by, and a

slight breeze is picking up, mitigating the humidity some. I do miss my

home. My home, my cat, my family, friends. I'm not homesick, per se, but I

miss the certainty, security, and knowledge of cultural norms that I have

there. My shyness comes and goes; I wish I were not so alone.

Fieldnotes 6J15/97

Now for some research observations: I am hesitant to use the video

camera. I'm not sure why this is, other than that I am shy at heart and I don't

like to "look like a tourist," even though I know that my skin, clothes, hair,

aU give it away at a glance. But, I'm going to have to do it. My excuse today is

that the batteries are dead again. I will charge them during the siesta today.

They don't hold much of a charge. They seem to run out so quickly. I have the 35 mm and the cassette recorder with me too, though, and I plan to use them after I get more money. This hotel is expensive—235 pesos a night, but they'll give me a deal because I'U be staying for awhile.

204 Fieldnotes 9fllf97

Fve been in Isla Mujeres for a week and a day now. In many respects,

this trip has been much better than the last. However, I've been pretty bad

about writing. Two nights ago, I really wanted to write, but I couldn't find a

pen anywhere. I really wanted to record my thoughts, but there was no way to

do it. I decided to use the ViewCam, but by the time I had figured out how to

set it up so it would work, the friends I was expecting were going to arrive at

any moment, and I didn't want them to walk in while I was filming myself.

It's a weird thing to be doing, no? By most people's standards, I would think

so.

Also, I've identified a few problems with the new camera which

might be addressed by a more expensive model. When self-recording, the

microphone is actually positioned away from the filmed subject. The mic

would be better positioned below the lens, so it's focussed on whatever is

being filmed. Thus, to be recorded, I had to speak loudly. And yet I felt I

needed to whisper, even though my neighbors wouldn't understand most of

the English words I would have spoken. I still felt odd, self-conscious, even

though I was alone.

Homenotes 11/8/97; 2:30 am

I actually sat and watched films from the third Isla Mujeres trip tonight with some colleagues. They exclaimed, "It's like a movie!" "Great footage" and all that. They said they wanted footage like that. I guess I didn't really try

205 to get "footage like that." It just happened. I didn't even plan to go to the street party, the Cuba - Isla Mujeres cultural exchange that we watched. I just got there, just ended up there. For me, what's important is that I am missing my friends from watching all of the tapes. Still, they remind me of happy tim es.

Homenotes 11/9/97; 2:20 am

We must theorize the return of the fieldworker to the "home." It's traumatic. I'm sure of that. There seems to be a head-rush in fieldwork for some—they don't want to go "home." For others, they hate fieldwork and never do it again. Did Malinowski ever go on another field trip? I don't think so.

Back to the trauma stuff for a minute....It's been about 45 days since I left Isla Mujeres and only last night did I watch the films with anyone...I could barely watch them alone—only a little—before bursting into tears. So weird to watch "my life" on tape. I am lonely in this place. I am lonely there, too. Not every minute of every day, but perhaps for a minute of every day.

Alienated both here and there. I'm starting to feel stuck in the middle.

Homenotes 11/13/97; 12:38 am

...Thinking a lot about how I can possibly wait to return to the Isla until March. It gives me a lot of time to read and to write on my first two

206 research trips, but it keeps me so long away from there. I feel homesick in a

weird way, but I know I will feel the same—homesick—when I am there....

....I need some cash, and I need it from a reputable source. I have

plunked down enough of my own capital (as though I had some) to show that

I care, and that it can work. Aren't there any venture capitalists who specialize in backing ethnographic research? Now it's time to get those legendary financial backers whom I so dutifully thank in my acknowledgments later.

Homenotes 2/16/98; 9:30 pm

Last night I transferred IM #9 from 8 mm to VHS, a tape which includes El Garrafon and some interview footage. In distinction to my fieldnotes, which tend to depress me, the video made me happy. I was impressed by the island and the shots I got there, their steadiness, the qualit}-^ of speech reproduction, etc. Not bad for no extra mic. The salient themes present in the interviews were interesting.

Also watched the interview with Carlos Gonzales. Watched myself.

Very weird. I found myself rather unattractive—my facial expressions are too much, I think. I look at myself in the mirror now and I feel so different from that—I look so different than in the September heat in the Zocalo.

Fieldnotes 3/19/98; 9:10 am

One point about the video camera. I'm shy about getting it out and using it. It's weird, I think. A little scary. Everything's a little scary right now.

207 1. Thoughts on perceived legitimacy: the type of camera, business cards, personal demeanor, and the ability to speak some Spanish all seem to score points.

2. It may be better to approach tourists with the idea of having coffee, with the camera along, instead of calling it an interview, or even anything remotely sounding like that before we get started.

3 .1 must ask Jorge if I can film from his tienda a little: it's a good street perspective.

4 .1 would like to use the Andean folk music that Mez Me and Elfego,

Alvaro & Rafa play for the soundtrack of the documentary.

5. Sometimes I feel like everything takes too much time...to go scope out a location (like the Casa de Cultura) and then return to film it. But for sites and with local people, that's important. However, with tourists, it seems to be an on-the-spot thing. This I'm just figuring out. Boy, it takes me awhile, doesn't it. Can't treat all the people the same way.

6. The brief meeting I had with Salas shows me some issues: how raw footage is boring. He again reacted to his own image with wonder regarding his similarity to his brother. And there was the common "Wow, what technology!" reaction. Yet, I'm getting the idea that the video idea is intimidating—from a number of people, including myself. I need to soften it up somehow.

7. Also, there is a problem with the way the screen is constructed because a viewer can only see the picture as one should from a certain angle.

208 From any other angle, it presents a negative image which is very weird

looking. And when a lot of people are gathered around to watch the tiny

screen, it is certain that someone can't see well. Another lesson in

perspective.

Homenotes 6(3/98; 3 am

I've been working on the Isla Mujeres video for "Vamos a la Playa."

To do this required watching the majority of the footage we've shot on the

island. Granted, I skipped interviews and other things I knew would not fit

the theme or form of the video. It's been rather tiresome and confusing to see

my "life" played out before me on TV—the past year in "clips." I hope I can

pull this off aU right. I want the shots to be edited in time with the music. I

wonder if that is possible....

5:50 pm

...Awake, of course, and working, again (as usual). Laid down the first

minute-and-a-half of the video so far. I'll go back tonight and finish the rest.

Hmm. Looks good to me so far. And, I was better prepared than I thought I would be less than two days ago.

Homenotes 6(6/98; 12:31 am

I'm copying the Mez Me tape now. So much later from March. Rather late. But interesting to watch for the first time, too. Those guys are great musicians—involved, impassioned by what they are doing, the music they are

209 playing. I hope they will be on the island when I get there: Rigoberto, Jose, and Miguel. What a night it was, that first night I met them in Tonyno's. And we just happened to get it all on tape. What luck.

Fieldnotes 7/9/97; 3 pm

Again I am sitting in the Cancün airport. This must be the fourth time, now. And again, I am listening to my walkman, and again writing in my journal, writing to say that my head hurts, that my stomach hurts, that I miss that island already...only three hours ago I left it. I wonder if the missing feeling is worse in the beginning, the middle, or at the end. Does it fade with time, or does it only grow, intensify, glow more fervently with each passing day? I don't know, but it's pretty bad right now.

The jets take off one by one, spewing their black streams of exhaust into the blue Cancün sky. The sun shines hot today, like everyday, and I could be out on the beach at La Palapa, maybe wading in the zazil-ha, the luminous water lapping the white sand. Killing time before an interview.

But now, today. I'm killing time in an air conditioned airport, waiting for a plane that is always late, waiting for a plane that will take me a thousand—and it might as well be a million—miles away from la isla bonita. I don't want to go home. What is a home? Where is my home? They say that

"home is where the heart is," and it seems my heart is still on the island.

With the sand, the lapping water, the palms.

210 Our flight is boarding now and I must go. And strangely enough, as I sit on this jet, wanting to cry, the rain has started to fall from a once-clear blue sky, now marred by black rain clouds, the rain stinging the tarmac, rising again immediately, as steam. And the wheels are rolling. No turning back now, not of my volition.

Fieldnotes 4/1/1998; 6 pm

Somewhere above the Caribbean Sea right now, I look at my hand writing this journal, and it looks brown, brown, brown, especially against the paper and my white llama wool sweater from the island. So this is the end of my third research trip to Isla Mujeres. I just counted my money and I have something like 190 pesos and $23.00 dollars. That's a lot better than the first time I was leaving the island. But that time was tough. I remember asking for money from a tourist near the miielle. He gave me the five dollars that would get me to a bank on the mainland, and told me not to bother trying to return it. "Just remember this day when someone asks you for money. If you believe them like I believe you now, give them the money they ask for. That's how you can repay me," he said. I have remembered him many times.

I'm so glad this trip is over, and so sad, too. Leaving the island is always hard for me. Very conflicted emotionally. It's strange how little I cared about school down there. Didn't even wonder about my grades until yesterday, when I was supposed to come back. Now I think it's of major importance that

211 I secure some grant money. I need funding to return. However, the fact that I

am funding myself is of great importance in relation to my talking/dealing

with some people, especially islanders. On the other hand, Americans like

William the photographer, bartender Harry, and Captain Ron are impressed

by their assumption that Fm "being funded" to do this. So, it goes both ways....

Memphis, Tennessee; 9 pm

...Jn Isla Mujeres, the musicians have started to play. Clearly, Fm in a

depression. It fell on me while I slept last night. This afternoon, it was almost

automatic the way I did things. And now Fve changed m y clothes back to

what I was wearing three weeks ago. WiU I go back to Isla Mujeres? That's a

good question. One I'm not sure I can answer right now.

Although Fm bored out of my skull here, really want to get the hell

home, and the only thing left to do is write, I can't bring myself to write about

so many things. One lonely hotdog is rolling on the grill. Rolling, rolling,

rolling.

I think I have enough footage to edit a short documentary now.

Twenty-five hours of tape, probably. And I only want between fifteen minutes

and an hour total. We've got music. We've got the scenic shots. We've got action. We've got people talking. And I can do more talking, too. I will definitely use "Me Voy Pal Pueblo" as one of the songs. I miss the guys from

Mez Me. "Ay Ay Ay" they started calling me....

Sometimes I wonder if it's not easier to be uneducated and in a dead­ end job. Right now, my future, my horizons seem endless. It's frightening,

212 really, all these questions, all this ambiguity. What is the limit? Where will it

stop? When will it peak? Is this it? What will I become? Where will I end up?

Where, through where, will I travel before I reach that limit, that end?

Homenotes 4/11/98

So much has passed since a month ago. Terrible dreams every night

that I can't tear myself out of. Horrible nightmares of Isla Mujeres

industrialized and skanky. Bars more like brothels. Everything dark, dank, all

the buildings made of brick. And everywhere, I see one particular friend, but we never speak. Maybe a tap on my shoulder, but when I turn around, gone.

Nothing. Disappeared out the back door. I am clearly depressed. I have no right to be depressed. My research is going well....Yet, none of this has been easy. Easy? No. Terribly difficult? Not all the time. And not aU hard work or unenjoyed. But difficult, yes.

Homenotes 11/5/97; 1:15 am

Tm preparing a presentation on Malinowski at the moment, and I began it by reading Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Then I picked up the

Diary. Fascinating. I read it as he apparently did some novels, voraciously, and in fact I've been known to read novels as he did, feeling equally guilty about the gorging as he did, but I've never felt that desire in "my field." No way. Too much life to live there. No time for novels.

213 This reading led me to turn to my own two battered, dog-eared field

notebooks—one chock full of words, and the second chock full of dead

mosquitos from one of my last rampages. The one which Gabi filmed,

laughing and yelling "Matalos mosquitos! Matalosl Matalosl" I listened to

Suzanne Vega, as I had when I was filling that first notebook.

There are many similar themes in my and Malinowski's diaries...

1) Illness—he and I are plagued with illnesses or injuries. And then

there is that problem of the heat.

2) Bugs are bad.

3) Depression—and fears—coining to the forefront occasionally...and at

other times, a supreme joy expressed, dazzled by a beautiful landscape, by

beautiful people.

4) And the intermingling of the "host" language into the text written

in the native language of the author.

5) The intermingling of dreams with theoretical considerations.

6) Feeling bad about neglecting one's personal writing.

And then there are some very distinct and important differences, but that is what I write about aU the time. Anyway, he led me to turn inward, remembering how things were, and remembering what has happened since—I have been back for some time now...seven weeks by the school calender's reckoning....I reaUy have been Uving week to week since my return.

214 Fieldnotes 3119/98; 9:10 am

I awoke at 7:30 and could no longer sleep, the noise of the street outside

the hotel has become too much to ignore. Eventually, I figured out that it was

time to work. I think I'm in a strange transitional period. And that is not just

me and my work, but it involves the people around me, too. I'm starting to

work more openly, and that's good. My mind is racing around certain things.

Afraid to forget any of them. I feel like time is definitely of the essence. I must

hurry before I forget, before the moment passes, and I can no longer do

something or some things.

And all of a sudden, I have this suddenly amazingly strong fear that it's

too big, I can't do it all, but I know that I can, but I need help. Carrying with

me now all the baggage of all the ethnographic shit I've read. Wow. It all

seems to put so much more weight on me in some respects...such a burden to

think of "the problem of representation" or "empathy"—those should be in

double or even triple quotation marks. My mind is definitely racing. I've got

to write, but I feel the need to do things. I feel like I have to get out of this

room so that the duena can clean it, wearing her white huipile, the kind

that Jorge says is "the most elegant of all": with white embroidery on crisp white cotton fabric. I can't figure out how the women stay so clean in those crisp white huipiles, even when they are sweeping streets or selling snacks from a wide metal basket perched on a hip or empanadas from a long one atop a shoulder.

215 Homenotes 9/14/98; 12:25 am

...The island. She has stolen my heart, if anyone has. I think of growing old with her sometimes. I envy those who have grown old with her, like

Urbelina, with her ice-blue eyes.

It drives me wild, sometimes, to be so long apart from that place. A long distance relationship, and so incomunicado for such long periods of time. Indecipherable, and always changing. Leaving me ecstatic or lonely, feeling free or frustrated. Silenced at times. At other times, demanding that I shout it all out loud. Inscrutable, with a history vague and important. And with the wrecks that pollute her. The sunrises that overwhelm...the sublime can be mixed with the beautiful. I am awed by it. I recall weeping inconsolably at the pink and gold sunrise. That was after the night I went with Chucho and Vincente to the zocalo in La Gloria. The night of the beauty pageant. And then, after that, to Maria Jose, for round after round.

And then, fairly dragging myself back to the veranda of the Vistalmar Hotel, to weep for the rising sun and bemoan to Don Chepo the horrible changes that could destroy the island. How many times have I cried for that island?

Homenotes 5/30/98; 4 pm

. ..I had terrible dreams last night, my birthday—about Isla Mujeres being aU decayed and industrialized, totally changed, and my thinking, "How could this happen in only three months' time? I wasn't gone that long!"

216 Homenotes 9/8/98; 2:32 am

I am really in a kind of limbo right now. Mind shifting, from

Columbus to Isla Mujeres. Always thinking about "it." Haven't talked to anybody there in a week—since I left. Wonder what's going on. So many people I miss. Need to write letters. Seems I'm always writing only to myself....

....Weirdly reliving scenes from Isla Mujeres.... I swear! I am using the bug spray I took down to the island to kill the roaches in my own house here!

This place is disgusting. It makes me want to vomit. It's really revolting. They have taken over my home. Maybe it's not my home anymore.

Homenotes 10/18/98; 11:45 pm

I just came to the realization that my future is inextricably bound up with the island's future now. Maybe I need to live on the island. Maybe so. I miss my life here less and less each time Tm there. I miss my life there more and m ore.

Worrying about the island. This is my second October away from her, missing her. Worrying about her and her people. Strange sounding. Her beauty is so striking in the pink dawn, a bank of high clouds drifting in over the islote. Ah, mi isla. Como te extrano? Como mi hogar.lf only a hurricane could just pick up El Présidente and whisk it away, leaving the rest untouched—like the house in The Wizard of Oz.

217 I was just thinking about the grand festival that could take place on the

pueblo's 150th anniversary. The year 2000, in fact. That would have to be a

project of the up-coming administration....

I need to move into the future. And the best way to do that is to finish

up with the obligations of the present...including this dissertation. Even when that is done, this project wiU not be close to being "finished." I think this will be a very long-lasting association. I think now of how I will remember this present as the future's past.

218 CHAPTER 6

POSTCARD PROMISCUITY

When the archeologists of the thirtieth century begin to excavate the ruins of London, they will fasten upon the Picture Postcard as the best guide to the spirit of the Edwardian era. They will collect and collate thousands of these pieces of pasteboard, and they will reconstruct our age from the strange hieroglyphs and pictures that time has spared. For the Picture Postcard is a candid revelation of our pursuits and pastimes, our customs and costumes, our morals and manners. (fames Douglas, qtd. in Staff, 1966, pp. 77, 79)

Introduction

In 1907, when London journalist James Douglas penned the celebration of postcards from which the above quotation has been excerpted, the golden age of the postcard was in full swing. First printed and posted in 1869, the postcard was designed to facilitate quick, casual, and inexpensive correspondence. By the last decades of the century, the postcard had been put to most every conceivable use, including the one that still survives most heartily at the end of this century: as the most-preferred means for a tourist to

219 send greetings back home (Staff, p. 46,1966). As Douglas noticed back then,

and as Geary and Webb have noticed 90 years later, "As symbolic and material

connections, they represent an important element in a fabric of social

relationships" (1998, p. 4). If one is to address communication issues in

relation to tourism in the late Twentieth Century, one needs to take into

account the phenomena associated with the production, consumption, and

circulation of postcards.

Just as Douglas predicted, albeit ten centuries earlier, the historical

value of postcards as documents which transmit cultural knowledge has been

duly noted by anthropologists, historians, language and area scholars alike.

(See Geary & W ebb, 1998; AUoula, 1986; and Staff, 1966 among others.) Stewart

(1993) and many other tourism scholars have also examined the value of

postcards as keys to understanding contemporary culture. This chapter brings

semiology and phenomenology to bear on a discussion which seeks to

uncover some of the mysteries hidden within the seemingly mundane

tourist practices associated with postcards. While examining the broader

cultural practices associated with postcard writing as situated in the ethnographic case study site of Isla Mujeres, I employ writing techniques and

forms which underscore the unavoidable liminality of the communication

researcher's position in work which straddles the edge of native ethnography.

220 After all. I—like most communication, researchers—wore the T-shirt and

bermuda shorts of the tourist long before ever donning the invisible lab coat

of social science.

"Greetings from Isla Mujeres"

A Caribbean island. I know that these words conjure up a specific

image for you. They conjure up ghosts of images for me. Still, as members of

a particular culture, we can share a vague image of "a Caribbean island,"

perhaps different around the edges—the shore—but essentially versions of the

same thing, a version of the picture postcard in figure 6.1. Stripped of its

caption, the graphic would represent "Any Island." That is in fact why the

caption had to be put there—to identify an otherwise unidentifiable place—not

like a postcard of the Eiffel Tour or the pyramids at Giza. As Barthes (1988)

Winter 1998 Columbus, Ohio My dear colleagues, I want to write to you about the island, but as cold as 1 am now in my drafty rooms, lorapped in an old fur coat, with only the dark winter sky peering into my loindows, moon and stars enshrouded by clouds that press down on us, how can I write about the island, about postcards? The warmth of a Caribbean breeze, the rustling of the palms, the infinite helical lapping of zazil-ha, the luminous zuater. The scent of tropical blossoms mingled with the odor of death and garbage, encouraged by the heat. Feral dogs nosing about the trash heaps, licking bones...and the smell of frying beefsteak, chopped into strips on the grill, and rolled up in flour tortillas, tacos in la calle. Ariel makes them better than any fancy restaurant cook ever does, steaming and sprinkled only with lettuce. Yes, Ariel the cook—in the street— at the Taqueria lago. What could be more fabulous than these Shakespearean tacos, pounds of flesh served up catty-comer from the beautifully painted tombs hidden behind the cemetery walls? Hoxv do 1 transport myself back to the island, that bizarre, familiar, dreamlike, real, warm, delicious world? Hozu, when my very fingers are freezing as I type these words? I could be there now but for academia; it zuill be months before I make my return. 221 Figure 6.1: Postcard: "Greetings from Isla Mujeres, Mexico' (copyright: Luis Gomez Cardenas. Used by permission.)

222 notes in relation to press photographs, "the text loads the image, burdening it

with a culture, a moral, an imagination" (p. 26). But, were I to take you to this

island, you would never see what this postcard sends. This postcard presents

to you an island that I, too, have never seen, no matter how many times I

have stepped down upon it. For, that is what we do when we come to an

island, isn't it? I have set my feet down on a number of Caribbean islands

recently. And none of them looked like this. In fact, none of the postcards in

this chapter can make present the island as I've come to know it over the past few years.

So, nozu I sift through photographs I've taken. The zuater so many shades of blue. The sand alzuays so clean and zvhite looking. And the Mayan smiles. I try to see it, to feel it, but I cannot. I listen to the recordings I made, off of Radio Pirata and Radio Turquesa...."Siih-suh- suh-supair Turqiiesita." My friends must have gotten sick of hearing me repeat the announcer's phrase...."She's been making tapes off the radio again," Gabi zvould explain. I even take my summer clothes from my closet and inhale any lingering smell of the Mexican soap they were last washed in. Not good enough. Not strong enough anymore. I'm doing my best to smother my senses zuith the stimuli that accompany the ever- pervasive heat, the zuarmth of that place. But it's so cold here, and I am so far azoay. I wonder, have I ever been so cold there? Yes, but only once, and then I zuas so ill, wrapped in all the thin cotton sheets I could tear off the beds, having been caught in a mid-September storm that blew in across the Gulf at four o’clock in the morning, the remnants of a hurricane that laid out Puerto Vallarta. Soaked through and through, and so impossible to get warm, then as nozu. Still, this dry cold is different, pervading as deep as my bones. But now, on the tape I hear again that song by La Mafia that seemed to follozu me everywhere I went, "Un Million de Rosas." A happy, lilting cumbia that alzuays reminds me of the loncherias, of the people sitting on their stoops in the zuarm evening with their radios playing, of long afternoons in Chi Chi's and Charlie's Bar on Playa Norte with Chucho the bartender and Wilfredo the skindiver (and student of Mayan linguistics) playing at being m is maestros, teaching me Mayan and Spanish phrases....Bi'x ani-ke'ex? = ^Cdmo estas? =How are you?.... And giving me a sense of the strategies that their ozun teachers might have used "

223 And still, this is not an unusual postcard, as you probably know.

Haven't you seen this kind before? The aerial view is a generic angle from

which to shoot almost any tourist location, and particularly a tropical island.

It gives one such a feeling of having captured the totality of its reality in just

one frame. And yet, the impossibility of ever experiencing the island in this

way is witnessed by the popularity of the window seat on the airplane, the

magnetic pull that steals the faces of the tourists just after take-off on their

way home from holiday, searching impossibly over other people's heads for a

glimpse of the island from the point of view that may well approximate the

ones that drew them to the spot in the first place. Looking back upon the

already-experienced, some tourists take out their cameras in an attempt to

snap a shot like this one; when they get home, and the photos are

developed and placed in the album, it may well be the shot that signifies

Read this page four times. Now, lorite it from memory." After one or two sentences, my sheepish grin: "They don't teach us that way at home. No tengo una memoria." And I remember the "locals only” nightclub nearby. Calypso and its othercanciônes, the swaying hips of island girls, wrapped in white cotton skirts, their broad, beautifid Mayan faces smiling on a Saturday night as they meringued and salsaed with the bronze-skinned boys who bought them rum and roses. Packed in on the sweaty dance floor with them, with Gilberto and Gabriel trying their frustrated best to teach me the steps. The steps that seemed so natural for everyone around me....That tangerine-slice moon over Isla Mujeres. I remember hozu it lay so lazily, reclining in the midnight sky.... How I miss them: People, Places, Things. How can I write about this place, this situation....to analyze, intellectualize, abjectify those smells, sounds, and xuays of being, which I try so hard to capture—not quite grasping them with the tips of my fingers—and transfer to m y computer screen? A s Derrida zurote in his Postcard From Socrates to Freud, "I resemble a messenger boy from antiquity, a bellboy, a runner, the courier of zuhat zve have given one another, barely an inheritor, a lame inheritor, incapable even of receiving, of

224 the end of the trip, no matter how blurry, fragmented, and generally half-

assed the photo turns out to be (see figure 6.2).

Why is this such a common way of representing an island? What is it

about aerial photos like this that make them so popular with the people who

shoot them and buy them? Before the sender ever inscribes a word on the

back, what does such an image say? "I was here." That is the first thing. "Here,

on those white strips which recall sun-bathed beaches, bordered by the

requisite four colors of shining blue sea—seas, perhaps, that I went skindiving

in. I was here—amongst the lush vegetation, those green patches, which, true

to your imagination, are made up of palm fronds that rustle in the constant

Caribbean breeze and mangrove swamps that hum with insects."

This photo pretends to represent the totality of the island experience.

Cut off from the rest of the world, a sleepy tropical paradise where the wearisome workaday world never intrudes. A secluded playground. It is a vista very similar to that chosen for the official promotional poster of the island by the Fideicomiso of Tourism in late 1998. (And very like that chosen by Cancun as well. The municipalities employ the same advertising agency.)

And that is the image that tourists to the Caribbean island have paid to be shown, eyes sleepily closed to aU the work and squalor that actually surrounds them, the work and squalor which enables them to lie around in measuring himself against whatever is his to maintain, and I run, I run to bring them nexos which must remain secret, and I fall all the time" (1987, p. 8). How can I present here and now something that no postcard could ever hold?

225 Figure 6.2: An Amateur Aerial Photograph of Isla Mujeres

226 luxury, "doing nothing," and having all their needs, created or real, satisfied.

(I bet you can't pick out the garbage dump, the slaughterhouse, or the water treatment plant in this photo.) Such an photo is a polysemous image of leisure, imbued with its own "'floating chain' of signifieds from which readers can pick and chose to ignore or notice" (Barthes, 1988, p. 39).

Selected and paid for with a few lightweight coins or a hmp bill—"play money"—"How much is that is real money, honey?" rings in my ears—the postcard enters the possession of the tourist. Now, perhaps the image is tucked away to be inserted in the photo album next to the tourist's own less professional snapshots....to show the way the place "really" looks when a professional photographer shoots it. For, as Barthes has noted, the communicative phenomenon of the postcard functions to present "the always stupefying evidence of this is how it was, giving us, by a precious miracle, a reality from which we are sheltered" (1988, p. 44). That is, the postcard wül help protect our tourist from all the unsavory memories that she might have and help to preserve all the good ones.

Stewart insightfully chronicles the series of actions involved in postcard transactions as one that revolves around the ingrained search for authenticity with which many Western tourists are unknowingly obsessed: ...the postcard, is characterized by a complex process of captioning and display which repeats this transformation of public into private. First, as a mass-produced view of a culturally articulated site, the postcard is purchased. Yet this purchase, taking place within an 'authentic' context of the site itself, appears as a kind of private experience as the self

227 recovers the object, inscribing the handwriting of the personal beneath the the more uniform caption of the sociaI....The other's reception of the postcard is the receipt, the ticket stub, that validates the experience of the site, which we can now name as the site of the subject himself or herself. (1993, p. 138) Perhaps the card will be taken to the hotel room or a restaurant where a message will be dutifully scribbled on its back, an exotic stamp affixed to it, to be dropped in a comer postbox. How many times have I seen those wonderfully prolific, sunburnt tourists, ensconced at a comer table in a restaurant or a shady cafe with a stack of postcards and a pen, taking a break from the sun and heat? Loathe to step for one waking moment out from the exotic environment that they have worked aU year to pay to sit in, they look up and gaze blankly at the waiters' hustle and bustle as they think up mundane, formulaic sentences.

And what are those sentences that tourists so often write on the backs of the cardboard islands? Well, "The weather is beautiful." And, of course,

"Wish you were here." Isn't that the classic? So classic that some postcards have it printed on the front of them. (Now what in God's name wiU the tourist find to write in that suddenly very large, very blank space?) And what about "Wish you were here"? Is it just a postcard convention, a space-saving device, that drops the subject from this sentence? Who wishes you were here? Is it I who wishes, or is it perhaps you? Indeed, it is important that you

228 are not here. Otherwise, you wouldn't be getting a postcard. While I sit in this

beautiful weather, you sit wishing you were in this beautiful weather.

Because, chances are, you're fucking cold right now....

The clever turn of phrase that Jimmy Buffet set to music, "The weather

is here, I wish you were beautiful," comes to mind. Although practically

everyone (it seems) sends these cards, very rarely is the pervasive motive

behind the action so boldly proclaimed as it is in a department store circular

recently delivered to my home. Selling Liz Claiborne fashions against a

backdrop of tropical palms and beaches, one caption reads: "Tossed the the to-

do list. More fun to write gloating postcards to land-locked friends, 'I've found

paradise'" (Lazarus, 1999, p. 2).

Lingis provides us with one explanation for the willingness of postcard

writers to "rub their friends' noses in it"—something they would probably not

do so blatantly m a face-to-face interaction: Inscription...circulates differently: it is transferred or transported from one writer to another through the mail, and between the sending and the receiving there is not the ideal coincidence—that ideal of self- consciousness—that occurs when the speaker hears himself; there is always the eventuality of the message getting lost in the mail (1985, p. 154). Sending a postcard is almost anonymous in that the message on the back of a card is so public. The short space provided for the scribble almost begs for a one-liner, a clever quip, a sound bite from the vacation.

229 And why do the tourists send these cards? There is some duty

involved, to be sure. "I have to go back to the room and write some

postcards," is a statement that I've heard more than once in the street of some

vacationer's paradise. There is such an imperative about the purchasing,

inscribing, and posting of the cards. The echoes of left-behind friends' parting

orders: "Don't forget to send me a postcard." It is as though it is the one duty,

besides having a good time, that the tourist carmot shirk. And the odd thing

about it is that the postcard was designed to save time, to free up a

correspondent, not to shackle one: Formerly, when a man went abroad he was forced to tear himself from the scenery in order to write laborious descriptions of it to his friends at home. Now he merely buys a picture postcard at each station, scribbles on it a few words m pencil, and posts it. This enhances the pleasures of travel. James Douglas, qtd in Staff, 1966, p. 79) And, who really enjoys fulfilling this (smaller but still present) duty?

Or more importantly, what crucial message has ever been sent this way? Did

Napoleon send orders to his generals on postcards from Elba? It seems to be another price the tourist has to pay for having a good time—the tangible evidence—along with the obligatory souvenir gifts (don't forget the T-shirts!)— for the good time having been had. After all, isn't that another message so often sent? "Having a wonderful time!" If the postcard weren't sent, necessarily postmarked for authenticity by the local post office, there may be some question as to whether the tourist did go—if a wonderful time was had—

230 at all. Stewart has pointed to nostalgia as the culprit here: "In this is...the

disappointment we feel in receiving a postcard from the sender's home rather

than the depicted sight" (p. 135).

This postal seal of authenticity is so important that, in the lobbies of

some cruise ships which caU in a multitude of ports, there are postboxes

marked with the name of each port, and cards placed in the box for Grenada,

for example, wül be canceled in Grenada, whüe those in the St. Thomas box

WÜ1 be canceled there, maüed back to the just-visited island before heading off to their final destinations. This touristic, evidentiary function of the postal cancel recalls the way a postal cancel can be used as juridical evidence. A postcard without the exotic cancel just isn't authentic. Why bother sending it at all? The cancel functions as a form of cultural capital in its own right, a passport of sorts.

And then there is the stamp that cancel covers. Like those sidewalk chalk drawings the cliimney sweep made in Mary Popp ins, each lickable square depicts a world unto itself, is a mini-postcard in more ways than one.

Packages of "Different" and "Genuine" national stamps can often be found for sale in souvenir shops. As even Currents, a quarterly magazine (read 30-page advertisement) for the former guests of Carnival Cruise Lines notes, the value of the stamps is more than just aesthetic; it is economic. "They promote the islands while delivering cash to local coffers" (Walton, 1998, p. 12). And these stamps show up in their own special albums, evoking "exotic

231 reminders of sea-breezy tropic life" (p. 12). Could it be that there is some link between the tiny size of the stamp and the tiny size of the island ... and even the tiny size of the vacation, as well? It's all so cute, so miniature. It's all so smaller than life.

Along its route—with aU its authenticating symbols attendant—what becomes of it? It passes through many hands, gazed upon—and possibly read— by any bored mailman or voyeur who can and cares to. The role of the voyeur in the whole postcard process is highlighted in Nick Bantock's popular series of Griffin & Sabine books which reproduce the romantic correspondence of a fictional couple. Actual, full-color postcards and handwritten letters make up the contents of the books. As the book jacket explains, "each letter must be pulled from its own envelope, giving the reader that delightful forbidden sensation of reading someone else's mail." (With the postcards, you don't have to go to so much trouble—just turn the page.) The occupations of the correspondents add an extra layer of thematic unity to the project in that

Sabine is employed as a stamp artist on a small Pacific island, while Griffin's job is that of a postcard designer.

Finally, though, the postcard does reach the destination. The postbox of the friend who wasn't there, showing him exactly where he was not. The weather depicted on the card is "beautiful." (Have you ever seen a professionally printed postcard for a Carribean island that was shot in the middle of the hurricane season—palm trees whipping back in the driving

232 rain, or one that depicted the aftermath of such a storm? Cars in the harbour and boats in the street? Believe me, the weather is not always so beautiful.) Of course, the recipient of the postcard may have been to the site the card pretends to represent, but it is ever so much more interesting when he has not. Then the card can fulfill its intended mission to the fullest degree.

Perhaps the shadow of jealousy, perhaps some vicarious pleasure. "Lucky bastard. Wish I were there" is the preferred thought we want to evoke. And now, if the makers of the card and the sender of the card have all done their jobs right, we get the germs of emulation and preference formation, political economy in the flesh: the surfacing of a libidinal economy. Almost like a spore, the postcard spreads the virus of desire to the receiver, and hopefully another tourist is bom. In fine, the postcard is another manifestation of the ever-expanding Western custom of paying to display, even inscribe, commercial advertisements on our bodies and possessions, just like t-shirts, baseball caps, tattoos, and bumper stickers are.

We could call the phenomenon that is happening here "postcard promiscuity," or el libertinaje de las postales. It's true, the promiscuity inherent in photography has been noted before: "Photography is a promiscuous way of seeing which cannot be limited to an elite, as art" (Urry,

1990, p. 139). And photography is so clearly bound up with postcards today.

But what exactly does the "promiscuity" of photographs mean? Only that anyone who wants to gaze upon a print can? That the photograph circulates,

233 like a slut does, without discriminating between one partner or another?

Promiscuity so readily connotes sexuality, as attested by my dictionary's first

definition for it: "characterized by or involving indiscriminate mingling or

association, esp[ecially] having sexual relations with a number of parmers on

an informal or casual basis." Such a definition does tell part of the postcard

story. But there is more to promiscuity than just sex. And there is more to

postcard promiscuity than just those "Beach Bums" and "Sun Your Buns in

Cancun" postcards that depict a bevy of bronzed turista asses, just barely

covered by dayglow thong bikinis—I'm sure you know the kind. (If not, see

Figure 6.3)

Post-A -Pom

Let's digress on that a moment. What is going on with those pornographic postcards anyway? Who buys them? Who are the eventual recipients? The "smutty" postcard is almost as old as the picture postcard itself. According to Staff, "bathing beauties" were being depicted on postcards by the early 1900s. Although tame by comparison to those I've seen for sale in almost any resort town, they were considered risque for their time. And as

Alloula (1986) has shown in his study of French-produced postcards from

Algeria, the genre got to be graphic rather quickly, the colonialist enterprise finding little problem with exploiting the breasts of the women whose country it had come to exploit in so many other ways.

234 g

Figure 6.3; Postcard: "Beach Bums" By now, the smutty postcard seems to be an almost naturally permanent fixture on the seaside town's postcard display rack—so natural that, other than a distasteful glance, we might not stop to think about them. But are they so "natural"? The fact that we almost never see them on the rack of postcards advertising Columbus, Ohio or Madison, Wisconsin may never come to mind. But it is the absence there that can help us understand the presence elsewhere. The certain connection between exoticism and eroticism that seems to be at play here should not be overlooked. The exotic beach setting—the absence of clothing that seems so pervasive—bikini tops and shorts in the street—it's not such a stretch of the imagination to fantasize that all these women baring a lot of their bodies in public would go one step further and bare it all. As with other postcards, the smutty one "literally takes its desires for realities" (AUoula, 1986, p. 44). And in post-a-pom, the women "offer their body to view as a body-to-be-possessed, to be assailed with the 'heavy desire' characteristic of pornography" (AUoula, 1986, p. 118). They are women without identities, and in many such postcards, women without heads: faceless and brainless. They are just tits and asses. And that's why I caU these postcards "pom."

As with any communication phenomena, "The use of this type of postcard cannot be entirely foreseen: it goes from jocular smuttiness between correspondents...to lover's stratagem...and includes the constitution of

236 comparative 'knowledge'" (AUoula, 1986, p. 105). It's clear that we can't pin down every type of consumer for such communication devices, but we can glean some understanding from the clues the producers and marketers in Isla

Mujeres have left us. The first thing (surprise, surprise) is that the target market is predominantly male. WhUe not true in all locations, here the vast majority of the cards depicting nearly-nude bodies are those which portray women. While there are a few postcards that show off a buff boy's bod, aU of these contain some kind of joke content. For example, a very old woman might be depicted next to a young (headless) male body (complete with thong), accompanied by a caption which reads, "Havin' a brief encounter in

Mexico." However, those which depict women rarely have such "humor" value. There's nothing funny about them....

Another thing that we can leam from the postcards has to do with where they are produced. All of the smutty postcards I have seen on Isla

Mujeres—except for one—were produced and printed in the United States or

Canada, and the only things that link them to Isla Mujeres are their location captions, which frequently include the phrase: the "Mexican Riviera," bringing to mind exotic tales of the Euro-rich. All of these showcase foremost and upfront one or more partially nude female bodies. But to the viewer who knows the island's topography, certain physical details in the background, such as the color of the sea, the geologic formation of the rocks, or the color of the sand indicate that these photos weren't even shot on the island.

237 The only card in my sample which was shot on the island (and produced in Cancun) presents a very different composition from those discussed above (see Figure 6.4). "Hello from Isla Mujeres" is a collage of seven photographs thematically centered on the topless beach which Isla

Mujeres boasts, as is indicated by panoramic shot of Playa Norte which comprises the top half of the card. However, the bottom half of the card sports six photos, all of which include at least one female body. The striking thing about this card is its mixture of both staged and candid shots. There are two photos for which models were clearly posed, and in those photos, the women's breasts and pelvic regions are covered, while their faces remain revealed. However, the candid shots depict either the bare breasts or buttocks of tourist women who appear to have been unaware that their photographs were being taken. While most of these do not show the faces of the woman, one actually does. Such photographs are clearly voyeuristic, and the fact that they are sold openly in stores may be be related to a growing social acceptance of sexual exploitation as witnessed by the proliferation of voyeuristic pornography on the internet. In any case, it seems that female tourists have one more thing to add to their "dangers of travel" list. Along with rape and hepatitis A, B, or C, the travelling woman had better be mindful that she could become an unsuspecting partner in the Third World post-a-pom m arket.

238 ü VO

Figure 6.4: Postcard: "Hello from Isla Mujeres" (copyright: Luis Gomez Cardenas. Used by permission.) And isn't that quite the reversal in the centuries-old colonialist

narrative? As I was reminded by a lecturer on Nahuatl culture and history at

the Casa de Cultura in Cancun in April 1999, the indigenous groups of México

welcomed the Spaniards with gifts, of their daughters and sisters, but those

conquerors never reciprocated. And as AUoula (1986) reminds us, conquerors

in other lands have employed their photographic technology to exploit

indigenous women. Now, the colonized and exploited have acquired the

technology and they understand the market: it's come time to exploit the

white woman without her consent.

M ixtures

Perhaps more interesting aspects of postcard promiscuity are revealed

by two other (more etymological) definitions: "consisting of parts, elements,

or individuals of different kinds brought together without order" and "casual;

irregular; haphazard." If we look at these aspects of the definition, those

referring to mixture and casualness, we get further into explaining how postcard sending can be promiscuous, and in fact, how it Ccinnot help but be promiscuous because it is a tourism practice.

First rU take on the mixture. There are a lot of avenues to explore here.

We can look at the mixture of images that the cards present on display in a

240 shop or even moreso in an album. Or we can look at the mixture of cultures, of people, that occurs with the tourist who sends these postcards. Urry (1990) lists nine "characteristics of the social practices which are conveniently described as 'tourism,'" but the ones that concern me here are those temporal- spatial characteristics involving a "movement of people...to...sites which are outside the normal places of residence and work...of a short-term and temporary nature" (p. 3). This movement away from the normal must involve a mixture. Tourism is all about going to a different place, being around the different people who live there. We caimot escape mixture here.

Every tourism contact zone presupposes this kind of mixing.

And yet, this is not as simple as it looks in theory, because in practice, we know that the tourist almost always sticks out like a sore thumb. One can be spotted a mile away. The tourist is accused of—can be defined as—being the one who does not mix enough. It's pretty easy to spot one, most islanders would agree. And I was even given a lesson in it myself when I agreed to hand out flyers (with enticing coupons for free margaritas) for a group of

Andean Folk musicians in March 1999. "lust give them to tourists, you know, ones who have money." "What do they look like?" "They look American, they're usually white—or red—and these ones have shoes on. The barefoot ones—from Poena (the youth hostel)—almost never tip, you know. Don't worry. You'll know them when you see them." I did know them when I saw them. And, if I'd seen her, I would have given a flyer to the woman described

241 by the Liz Claiborne ad, too: "Pretended I was someone else today. Someone

who fluttered about in look-at-me red. Someone free of inhibitions, who

acted on every impulse. Vacation...what an incredible rush" (Lazarus, 1999, p.

10). Funny how you can tell when someone is pretending to be someone else on vacation.

A nd Poena applies to mixing, too. This youth hostel is named for the word "mixture" in Maya, presumably because of the mixture of youth from all over the world which congregates there, sleeping in hammocks and eating bread with bananas for a small fee each day. Even these tourists do not mix too well into the population. Their frequently bare feet and studied slovenliness do not impress the locals as indicative of a group of people who have "good marmers" or who will tip well, and a good tip goes a long way towards good will no matter where the tourist site is.

And then, we carmot overlook the "tour" in "tourism." A tour implies being led, and it implies being led in a collective, as one of many who are led, as one sheep in the shepherding guide's flock. Led on by the pleasures of the flesh that their guides promise them, beside the still waters, into green pastures. Tourists are almost never alone, and when they are, they are often jumped—the way a wolf devours a stray sheep.® Surrounded by a group of similar individuals—be it a large commercially organized group or a small

® On a recent cruise which docked in Caracas, Venezuela, the greater portion of the ship's human cargo did not disembark for fear of just such a tiling occurring. Caracas had experienced a small but well-publicized rash of tourism-related assaults. As a direct result, Caracas has been dropped from the itinerary of a number of cruise lines.

242 nuclear family—tourists socialize amongst themselves, stick together,

preferring the company of the familiar in the midst of the other. A collective,

a coagulate, a clot in the lifeblood that surges by them on its daily route.

Landed off of a bus, perhaps in the midst of a crowded thoroughfare, the

tourists are the ones blocking traffic, the ones standing, staring agape at

whatever unfamiliar view presents itself...be it skyscrapers or dirty children

begging in the street.

If the tourists were to really mingle, as this aspect of promiscuity

implies, they would not stand out. They would adapt a "native" habit of

posture and thought, donning native clothing, bursting out in fluent native

speech. If they could be like this, they would be indistinguishable from the

humdrum daily crowd, and we know they are not. Such apparent cultural

chameleonism is only achieved through years of study and experience. We

know tourists do not do this. Tourists do not blend in. It may be a purely

physical thing: the tourist's blonde head stands two feet above the rest of the

crowd, for instance. Or it may purely be attitudinal. Those who blend in are no longer identifiable as tourists. They are something else.

Even if we could capture a tourist, dress him in the clothes of the surrounding culture, and brainwash him into knowing the local language in a moment, we could not take away from him that absolutely uninhibitable desire, that compulsion, to gaze upon—even gawk at—the unfamiliar. Tourists cannot control "the tourist gaze." The tourist must gaze, must gawk. After all,

243 the unfamiliar is what they are looking for. When we have mixing, true co- mingling, it seems we haven't a tourist at all...but more of that soon. Perhaps in the various levels of mixing—that exchange of viewpoints, that merging of horizons which is necessary to true mixing, the learning the languages, grammars, customs, the whole cultural exchange—we find instead the ethnographer who defies taboo and comes to love what is native, "goes native."

Casuality

Well, and then there is the casual aspect of promiscuity; and that may be where I hit some pay dirt. Casualness is the tourist. The tourist is so casual that he doesn't bother to leam the language. "English is the universal language, and it's American money that I'm spending." Doesn't bother to leam the custom. "It's just a vacation, after aU. Who has time for that?" And as far as clothes are concemed—the visual markers of the tourist—consider the bermuda shorts, black socks, madras shirt, and dangling camera that seem to comprise the uniform of the middle-aged male tourist. Or, as it goes in Isla

Mujeres today, its always a tourist who walks down Avenida Hidalgo in a bikini, be it a female or a male. That's just too casual, too promiscuous, for anyone but a tourist. Maybe they have different mores where they come from, or maybe they are taking a vacation from their own mores. In any event, they are not paying any attention to the mores of the island...and the island does

244 have its own mores. Even at the beach, islenos don't seem to display their

bodies in such a flagrant way, especially women. Several islenos have

pointed out to me that you can wait and watch, but you'll never see an

islena’s breasts on the topless section of Playa Norte. Oddly, American

women tend to have this reputation as weU.^ And those companeros w ho

wear Speedo-type bathing suits on the beach should be prepared for the

mocking comments of their friends. It will probably be a subject of humor for

a long time to come.

Casualness. The contacts made are not long-lasting, there is no order to

them. They are merely haphazard. That is where we find postcard

promiscuity. The relationship comes and goes, not that relationship between

sender and receiver of postcard, but between sender and sent. Scribbled on

without a lot of thought or care, the postcard is a casual form of

correspondence, and tourism has historically been a casual form of

experiencing the other. And that could be where we see some convergence

between being and writing about being. Now and then, 1 have watched

turistas in the beach-front disco. La Palapa, and I have seen how, each night

of their vacations, some will take a different man back to their hotels, or

perhaps just down the beach a ways. These women have names like "La

Garda Rubia" or "La Morena Vieja." It seems that no one cares to know

their true names, maybe because there is nothing true (in the sense of

^ My Canadian friend tells me that, if she is not in the mood to meet Americans, she will take off her bikini top on the beach. Then, Americzms avoid her like the plague, she says.

245 "faithful") about them. When it comes down to it, they are just casual morsels for the sharks, los tiburones, who make certain turistas a habit, or more accurately, a business. (See chapter 7 for a more explicit discussion of the

"tiburon" phenomenon.)^®

But, not all encounters between turistas and islenos turn out to be so casual. I have met several women who return to the island year after year, bringing with them the children of Isla Mujeres, who now live in Norway, in

California, in Canada. And there are others who now live there with their husbands and children. But are these women tourists? Do they send postcards back home? I don't know for sure; I'll try to ask them if I see them again. I wonder if they do. And if they do, are the messages "Wish you were here" and "The weather is beautiful"? It seems more so that this mixing is not casual or haphazard—despite whether it did or didn't begin that way. Now, there is an intertwining of lives and cultures that breeds something more than postcard promiscuity.

After completing the first draft of this chapter, I happened across Donald Schueler's account of his travels in Yucatan, The Temple of the Jaguar. In a chapter entitled "Cancun," he presents a conversation he had with several waiters in a Cancun restaurant. They explain this type of relationship: "While they're here, they pay our way." "That's what American girls come here for...I see it all the time. They go after waiters—like they were going shopping. In m y opinion, it makes them feel more powerful. It's like they're buying a person." (1993, p. 150). Cancun appears to be well on its way towards becoming inscribed in the popular American mentcdity as a perfect site for such intercultural flings, just as it has come to be known as an under-age drinker's spring break paradise.

246 Well, perhaps that is one place where postcard promiscuity reaches its limits, blurs, becomes determined...where individual lives become engaged and where cultures become intertwined. Perhaps that is where something like verstehen begins. And perhaps that is where this chapter should end, recognizing and appreciating the gaps, the liminal spaces, inherent in both a touristic experience and in the experience of doing research in a touristic setting.

247 CHAPTER 7

T-SHIRT TALES: THE BODY AS BILLBOARD

Historical Materialism

There's something that rings true about those TV ads put out by the

Cotton Growers of America, or whoever it is that wants us all to like cotton so much. Those ads that show happy multicultural families cuddling on Sunday mornings, wrapped in fluffy cotton blankets, laughing, reading newspapers.

The ad men want us to associate purity, fluffiness, happiness, love, caring with cotton. Doesn't matter what color or weave. Doesn't matter the manufacturer's label or the function of the item. Cotton bathrobes, towels, jeans, socks, blankets, underwear, T-shirts. Cotton everything. Why not? It's all-natural! What could feel better against your skin?

There's nothing synthetic about this image of cotton. It dissolves perfectly in aU of that other ideological brainwashing and bleaching that mainstream American TV and print ads do. And, this image of cotton meshes so well with all that other environmental awareness stuff. It's not polyester...we can't imagine toxic sludge being the waste product of a cotton

248 textile mill. But, of course, it's great to be able to imagine cotton as pure, soft, fluffy because the cotton industry has had to try its hardest to purify itself of the image that still seems to plague it like a boll weevil...the roots of

American cotton production being so tightly wrapped around—and feeding off the blood of—the body of the slave.

Well, the cotton industry has done a good job. Because, when I put on my oldest, most favorite T-shirt, the one that feels like water against my skin,

I do not think pain—blood—exploitation. I do not think of the thick anti­ abolitionist tomes that were published in America's pre-Civil War years, like the one entitled Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments (1860). Now, however, as I sit here wearing that T-shirt for some inspiration, and I think about Rigoberta Menchu's story, my back is beginning to itch a little, up near my right shoulder—right where I can't quite reach. Years of conditioning and washing can be subverted by reading or listening to mere tales. I can take off my shirt and examine it, pull at the threads of its warp and woof, even though I know how much comfort I have taken in this shirt, and so many like it, in the past. I can take Hurston's anthropological spy-glass and turn it upon my own chemise, my own camiseta.

My favorite T-shirt, this one Tm wearing—not too comfortably anymore—is blank. Plain white. Of all the T-shirts I own—and I am scared to have just counted 38 of them—this is the only one that feels so liquid.

Probably perfect for a wet T-shirt contest...not that I know anything about that.

249 And nowadays, from what I saw in Isla Mujeres over the last Spring Break week (1999), T-shirts are no longer required. These college kids are baring it all under the Caribbean moon. But, anyway, the problem with bleach its that it doesn't just whiten, it corrodes, too. Little by little, it weakens the fibers of the garment, until tiny holes appear, expanding with each wash cycle. And finally my T-shirt will just disintegrate.

T-shirts are rather pervasive articles of clothing in late twentieth century western culture, especially among the younger generations. Western people my age tend to have a lot of them. I have conducted both em informal and a formal survey, and it seems I'm not abnormal in having hordes of T- shirts.^^ They are used to send all sorts of messages, in all sorts of places.

Even when one is blank like mine, it can stiU communicate a message through that blankness: absence functioning as signifier. Dressy or casual.

Costing from 50 cents to 50 dollars. Most people. I'd guess, own at least one, depending on how you define "T-shirt," zmd the meaning (or lack of meaning) they attach to them must vary extremely. I have heard so many stories about T-shirts; they tell so many stories.

While I was engaged in writing the first draft of this chapter, I was required to enroll in a statistical analysis course. I used this opportunity to conduct a small survey of graduate students and other members of the university community regarding their T-shirt ownership. For me, as a qualitatively oriented researcher, the richest data which emerged from this exercise was that which was offered in regard to item 13 on the survey form: "Please describe your favorite T-shirt in the space provided below and explain why it is your favorite." The responses to this item indicate the significance with which T-shirts may be imbued. Readers will find these responses included in the footnote sections of the following pages. (I have edited the responses for grammar, spelling, and clarity.)

250 However, I do think that some trends, themes, can be seen in the cultural practices associated with T-shirts, with their creation, consumption, and display. They provide keys to understanding some aspects of the complex social, cultural, and economic relationships which exist in the case study site of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. First I will take a look at T-shirts in general, at some of the ways they can work, play, communicate. Then more specifically. I’ll examine souvenir T-shirts and their functions in tourism. Although the first two sections will incorporate T-shirts from Isla Mujeres as examples of more general phenomena, I will eventually restrict my focus to three souvenir T- shirts from Isla Mujeres—ones that have captured my imagination, and which point up some of the themes I've experienced as socially valid elsewhere— both in other touristic texts and in the experiential domain. By examining these T-shirts, these folkloric texts, from a perspective which combines phenomenology with hermeneutics and semiology, we can come to a greater understanding of the cultural importance of much more than just T-shirts.

These articles of clothing are inextricably bound up with the many cultural and economic groups which cooperate in the practices associated with their production, consumption, and display. The images and captions on the shirts offer us insights into the past, present, and future of this island tourist destination and home.

The chapter concludes with a discussion of a T-shirt idea for Isla

Mujeres that has developed over the course of the research process, touching

251 on. some of the ways it can be integrated into the social action research component of my ethnographic project there. In keeping with the practical tradition of phenomenological social science, such an analysis can afford other new ideas for utilizing T-shirts and similar souvenir products in ways which will maximize their economic benefits to the island community as a whole. In fact, it is important that one outcome of the T-shirt analysis is the development of strategies which will enable the island to take control of the image of itself which it presents on the international market.

Generali-Ts

There are a lot of different kinds of T-shirts, far too many to discuss at great length here. One piece of evidence for that is the very general definition my dictionary gives for this article of clothing. According to Webster's

Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, the T-shirt derives its name from its shape. All that really tells me is that it probably has short sleeves and a neck line near the collar bone. The rather general definition doesn't say anything about fiber content, color, ornaments or sleeve-length. Nothing like that. So, we are left with a pretty broad definition. And even the part about sleeve length is dubious because we live in the post-Lightning Bolt era of long- sleeved T-shirts. (This brand of shirts with surfing graphics were a huge fad in

252 the 1980s. Ocean Pacific was another label associated with this trend.) So it

seems I need to draw some boundaries, set up an operational definition of

what I'm really talking about.

In fact, that's the first question most of my "subjects" in my informal T-

shirt survey threw back at me..."What do you mean by T-shirt?" "I don't

know, why don't you tell me what it means to you?" I replied. "Well, do long

sleeves count? Tank tops? What about textures? What about girly T-shirts?"

"Hey, if you would call it a T-shirt in your daily life, then it's a T-shirt. Now, how many do you have?" And then they'd call me back with a number, usually separating out those not-really-a-T-shirt T-shirts and giving me separate numbers on them.^^

And then a weird thing happened that probably doesn't happen too often in survey research. Rather than "snowballing" (something I would be in charge of) my sample began to expand itself... maybe we could call this "the slime mold method of sampling." My subjects started finding subjects of their own, calling me up with their responses, and introducing new definitional problems. (I guess this is what you get when you do social science on grad students.) Now the question is, does the quality of the garment matter?

"Should we include shirts that one would only wear under other shirts?

Maybe we should make a distinction between good and bad T-shirts. I think

Don't really have one. I like plain white ones because they go with everything. Except for working out, I don't wear T-shirts much at all unless they are kind of dressy-Iooking. (Maybe these aren't T-shirts by your definition?) I have a drawer-full that I never wear.

253 it's a guy thing." "Hey, man if they're calling them 'T-shirts,' they're T-shirts, right? If they were undershirts, they'd call them 'undershirts.'" One says,

"This is an important question. It needs to be resolved." Her theory (as usual) is that it is all dependent upon gender. My theory is that we are well on our way towards good old positivism, turning people into tickets, marking them with Os and Is, and drawing them randomly from a box without replacement.

Anyway, I think you get the idea of what I consider to to be a T-shirt. I see it as a very general category; within it, there are many specific types that are not always so distinct from each other.

The boundaries between types of T-shirts could be drawn on any number of axes. But for my ultimate purposes, I think a productive division here would be based on the message (or lack of one) evoked by a T-shirt.^^

Although one could never come up with an exhaustive classification of all the possible message types, there are several broad categories that the majority would fall into: product T-shirts, community event, sports team, work/uniform, concert, kitschy slogan, and tourism T-shirts. It's important to remember that a T-shirt can send a lot of messages all at once... it can be polysémie. In fact. I'd argue that most—if not aU—of them act that way. Truly, some of these messages have nothing to do with what the T-shirt says or shows, but with how, where, and by whom it is worn. This is one place where the semiology of Barthes can help. The level of obtuse meaning, the third

"No message"—I use to not like the attention, but when someone obviously looked, I liked it.

254 meaning—the significance—which underlies and is bom out by the levels of

communication and symbolic signification (Barthes, 1988, p. 54). And one can

only come to it through a hermeneutic process described by Gadamer

(1972/1994) as the merging of horizons, but I will return to those theoretical

moves in a moment.

So, since research—like charity—ought to begin at home. I'll exemplify

the classification system with the contents of my own T-shirt stash and work

from there. First, there are the blank ones (all colors), like my favorite, that

could be seen as just generic Ts. I don't know if anyone gets the message I

intend for them to send—the political significance^'^ that I place on refusing

to turn my body into a billboard, but that's really why 1 wear only blank Ts in

public.^^

That implies that there are T-shirts which are simply advertisements

for products or companies—like Pepsi or McDonald's. I don't have any of

those, and it really blows my mind that people would actually pay to advertise

a product, but they do. And, of course, a lot of those shirts are promo items

that people don't buy, perhaps wearing them without ever actually using the

I own a T-shirt with Ms. Rosa Parks on it. It is politically significant because a historically significant incident (Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott) began with the act of jailing Ms. Parks for sitting in the "white" section of the public mass transit. As you know, this led to desegregation of public mass transit systems in the U.S.—making this country one that was more closely conformed to its political image!!

I like my green T-shirt since it has no writing or graphics on it. I like to wear it with jeans, khakis, or shorts.

255 product they nevertheless help to sell.^^ That reminds me of the way celebrities do commercials for products they would never buy... Do you really think Michael Jordan eats at McDonald's or would use those damn phone cards? And,, let's face it, some people see wearing a product name or logo as a stattis symbol. It isn't such a far leap from a McDonald's T-shirt to a Polo T with its little embroidered horsey on the pocket. It's just a yuppy version of the body as billboard.

Sometimes, a person might actually collect product T-shirts if they really love the product and identify with it.^^ People who wear their employer's shirts might also be included in this group. Collectors of Harley-

Davidson Motorcycle T-shirts come to mind here, too. For example, one friend's dad has more than a hundred of them, and the Ts that have travelled the farthest—like ones from Holland—are the ones he prizes most. He never wears those very special ones. And then there is the subversive version of the product T; an example is a shirt sold on Isla Mujeres (and elsewhere). It has the yellow Double Arches of McDonald's on it, but underneath them, instead of saying "McDonald's" in red letters, the shirt says "Marijuana: Over One

Billion Stoned." Pretty clever.

Well, back to my home-grown data. There are a few shirts in my

It is a plain white T-shirt with no printing on it. I actually bought it, so I was able to get something other than XL (with organizations, they just give everyone an XL). So I like this T- shirt because I picked it out and I like the way it fits.

My Bud Ice shirt with the logo in front and Bud Ice Penguin in the back. I love the product, I love its commercials & I love penguins. 256 dresser drawer that were printed to commemorate some particular happening

or event: a fraternity's charity basketball game, a biker gang's annual bar-b-

que, a national documentary editing institute. I think of these as "community

event T-shirts.Of course, these T-shirts also function as advertising for

particular groups, just like the Pepsi Ts do, but to my mind, they are a little bit

less corporate. There is a personal memory attached to these shirts; I may

never wear them in public, but I won't cut them up into rags either.-® After

all, I scored 22 points in that charity basketball game, and I was wearing a see-

through dress (with shorts and a T-shirt underneath). Dennis Rodman ain't

got nothin' on me.

The next logical category would be the sports team T-shirt. This looks

like a version of both the product T and the community event T. If the shirt is

advertising the Chicago Bulls or the Green Bay Packers or a university, it's

more like a product T.-^ If it's for a local team, like my high school crew team

T-shirts are, then it may be more like a community event T, wrapping a

I have 2 made for a party. I was basically against a T-shirt commemorating this party. But, I bought 2 or more once they were made.

My favorite T-shirt is an old green prom T-shirt. I like it because it says my city on it. [It is a] conversation starter and because it's green—the only green one I own.

It is oatmeal in color and reads "Relay for life-A Team Event to Fight Cancer." Although I have other RFL shirts, this is my favorite because I received it for volunteering and it makes me happy to know that I have contributed if even in a small way.

XXX large grey OSU. T-shirt received as gift. Favorite because it is XXX large.

257 memory around a wearer each time she pulls it over her head. Either way, it

says something about a wearer, displaying her preferences and identifying her

as a fan, as an athlete, or as a combination of both.^ To me, it seems like the

sports team T is a more "natural" kind of T-shirt than some others. After all,

the sports team T-shirt can function as a piece of sporting apparel—worn

during the game as a part of the team uniform. But this uniform function of

T-shirts goes way beyond the limited case of the sports team, and Til look at

this more closely in a minute when I talk about the work uniform T, as well

as in my later discussion of the way certain types of T-shirts can be seen as

uniforms for particular societal groups.

Most of the T-shirts that I have are ones that don't have anything to do

with an institutional affiliation, but a lot of people have T-shirts that do.

Particularly in warmer climates like Isla Mujeres, a T-shirt is commonly a

part of a person's work uniform, especially for people who work in

restaurants and bars. In this case, the shirt functions like the sports team T- shirt in that it identifies the wearer as a member of the team (a nice way of saying "an employee"), and as a product T-shirt—in that it also serves to advertise the company whenever the person wears it, even when he is a part of the product itself. An interesting thing happens when we look at work T- shirts, especially in a place like Isla Mujeres, because the restaurant or bar

My T-shirt with a climber scaling the back of the shirt. My younger brother gave it to me after teaching me to climb. (It's a shirt made by the company "Black Diamond.")

258 might also sell T-shirts to customers as souvenirs.^^ These might be identical to the ones worn by employees, like the ones sold at the snackbar Zazil-Ha which have the name of the bar on the front and "The Caribbean State of

Mind" written on the back. Or they could be different from the uniform T- shirts, like the one's sold at Rolahdi's, another restaurant. This is one place where the issue of authenticity crops up, but I'll come back to that in a later section of this chapter.

Another type of T is the rock band concert T-shirt. These are incredibly popular items, and they do double duty m their promotional endeavors.

Certainly they advertise the rock bands, but they also advertise the musical taste of the wearers... as well as the wearers' ability to pay an exorbitant sum for a T-shirt (at least $25 bucks) on top of the price of a concert ticket—probably another $30 bucks or so.^'^ Again we see T-shirts functioning as markers of status. These shirts also function as mementos of events that might transport their owner back to a good time, the way my community event T-shirts do for me.^^ This memory-evoking function is something I'll come back to when I get to souvenir T-shirts from tourist spots. In addition, the concert T can be an

^ Hard rock cafe—Orlando: Little hard rock cafe mark in the front and very colorful in the back with musical instruments. Bright, and energetic.

A black shirt with white lettering, "NORTHERN SCUM" in large block letters on the front, on the back in much smaller letters, BEAUTIFUL SOUTH.

^ My favorite T-shirt depicts a Robert Johnson type and says 'Chicago Blues.' (Robert Johnson thought Chicago was in California.) I also like the Frank Lloyd Wright one (more Chicago). And don't forget the 3 Road Kill Café T-shirts, with menus on the back.

259 object of collection just like the product T can. As a matter of fact, I recently saw an interesting intersection of concert T-shirt collecting and "traditional women^'s folk art" at the home of a friend. A self-defined punk, Jone has begun to sew a quilt out of her old punk rock T-shirts: Misfits, Sex Pistols,

Agent Orange, all stitched carefully together... Talk about postmodern.^^

Of course there are those shirts that just have some kind of kitschy slogan inscribed on them... like "Life's a Beach," or "Don't Worry, Be Happy," or maybe "I'm with Stupid." I would guess that these can also function as showing how hip the wearer is—right at the forefront of verbal fashion. (Jone would puke.) And, just like T-shirts in all of the categories I've mentioned, the kitschy slogan T can belong to more than one class of T-shirt. It might also be a tourism souvenir T, a product T, or a community event T that incorporates the slogan of the moment. It's important to remember that a T- shirt can evoke a lot of messages all at once... it can be polysémie. In fact. I'd argue that most—if not aU—of them act that way. Truly, some of these messages have nothing to do with what the T-shirt says or shows, but with how it's worn and who's wearing it.

The nature of the body as the "billboard" for the T-shirt's message cannot be underestimated, the body evoking its own message while

I have 24 which represent places I have lived, worked, vacationed, and events I have experienced (i.e., surviving a hail storm, climbing Diamondhead in Hawaii, and eye surgery). I have made all of these into a blanket and use it often. It represents my life up to a point.

260 simultaneously modifying that which is presented by its T-shirt. A T-shirt

with words printed on it begs people to read the body as a text.^^ People even

use their T-shirts to advertise their philosophy or religion.^^'^^ That brings

me to the problematic of artificially separating "the shirt's message" from "the

body's message" for the purpose of analysis. Indeed, this is the point at which

Merleau-Ponty's concepts of motivation and evocation come into play. One

could argue that in the life-world, people do not critically differentiate

between visual messages evoked by bodies, such as posture, gestures, hair

color, other worn items like clothes, jewelry, eyeglasses, and body

modifications Hke tattoos and piercings and those messages evoked

specifically by the T-shirts displayed on the bodies. Indeed, even the luay a

shirt is worn will expand its meaning.^® However, separating the two allows one to analyze the ways in which signs, things, and beings can interact with and modify each other. And, in fact, making this move is not really so artificial. After aU, people do assess the message a T-shirt wül evoke...for example, when they make purchasing decisions. People buy T-shirts for particular reasons, are motivated to spend their money by certain T-shirts—for

My "Cultural Infidel" shirt that my friend gave me for my birthday. Peace FPax Pacem. It describes my personal philosophy and fits great (makes me look thinner).

Circular design of art nouveau goddess with the chant "Isis As tarte Diana Hecate Demeter Kah Inanna" in silver ink on black. Very cool. Wore it til it fell apart.

I have a plain white T-shirt which looks great on me when I have a tcm. It's large, comfy, and looks great all the time.

261 themselves or for others to wear. People also tacitly analyze the message T-

shirts will evoke on their own bodies when they make the choice to wear

certain T-shirts on specific occasions, and of course this happens when they

decide to wear garments other than T-shirts, too.^^

Well then, T-shirts can work to modify the messages evoked by the

bodies wearing them. They can help others to "locate the body," providing a

sign that can be read against social stereotypes. If you see a white guy with

long hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt, you can locate him as "a dead-head," and expect him to have pretty liberal views and some experience with acid or pot.

On the other hand, you could see the same guy walking down the street in a black T-shirt with the name of a hard-core band on it. Now he's "a metal head," who could have a jail record and a violent temper. Of course, just because a person wears a shirt, that doesn't mean he's anything at aU, that doesn't mean he engages in any particular practices (other than wearing T- shirts and walking down streets). But, in general, that is the common way of perceiving the world; we make stereotypical judgments all the time, fitting people into the appropriate category so that we know how to deal with them- or not to deal with them.^^

I have a plain black T-shirt that I'm sure makes me look like James Dean—that is to say "cool," "nifty," or even "bad."

My favorite T-shirt is a plain wedgwood blue shirt with a pocket—when I work out I wear it because it is long, soft, and well-wom. I don't like having messages imprinted on the shirts— so others won't "pigeonhole" me for or against a peirticular cause, organization, etc.

262 In. addition, certain types of T-shirts, just like other clothing, can be see

as emblems of group membership for the people who wear them, as

uniforms on a socio-cultural level. Just as the sports team and work T-shirts

act as membership identifiers in very particular contexts, other kinds of T- shirts function as signs to other members of the same in-group, saying, "This person dresses like one of us, is one of us; he can be trusted (to whatever extent)." But it isn'^t just what the T-shirt says and the person who's wearing it that make up the message. Leaving aside the other accessories that can be used to compliment a T-shirt, hke a flannel shirt layered over top of it, the way a T-shirt is worn is also crucial. It can be tucked in, or the tail left hanging out. It can be dirty or clean, baggy or tight. It can be so short that the person's navel shows. The sleeves can be rolled up, maybe around a pack of smokes that sits like a chip on the wearer's shoulder. How the shirt is worn expands its message.

The 1980s provide a great example of how T-shirts' meanings can be modified by the way they are worn or what the wearer does to them. After the m ovie Flashdance became popular, a very specific style of tom T-shirts was fashionable. In fact, I did a "how-to" speech in summer school on the right way to cut up a T-shirt. First you need to cut out the ribbed neck of the shirt, but don't be too careful about it. Second, cut the sleeves off so that only an inch or two of them remain past the seam where they join the body of the shirt. Third, rip the hem off. Fourth, tear it in a few strategic places

263 throughout the body of the shirt, but don't go overboard or you will just look

like a "wannabe." Now wear the shirt and be proud that you're cool. Just like

the kitschy slogan Ts that become fads, the way of wearing a shirt was a fad at

that time. If you didn't do it right, you just weren't "with it."

Specifici-Ts

One kind of T-shirt that I haven't yet discussed head-on, and which displays many of the elements that we've seen present in other types of Ts, is the souvenir T-shirt from the tourist destination. Like product Ts, they work as advertisements, but for a geographical location instead of a company or product. They also can function as status markers, particularly if they advertise the name of a place with a classy or exotic reputation, like San

Tropez or something. The souvenir T-shirt says, "1 had enough money and leisure time to visit this place." And, like the concert T and the product T, this kind of shirt is often the object of collection. My brother Jon makes it a point to buy a shirt everywhere he goes, and for a pilot, that's a lot of places and a lot of T-shirts. When he wears them, he thinks back on the time and place where he bought it, remembering the vacation, inscribing it upon his body.^^

Wearing the T can be seen and is described by some in an evidentiary way. One tourist I met, Ron, will only wear tourist T-shirts that he has bought

It's a white T-shirt with an antique map of Baltimore in the front. It's my favorite because it has endured four years of continuous washing gloriously, still fits perfectly and it's still white. Also, I bought it during a road trip with friends one summer and I remember exactly when and how I bought it whenever I wear it.

264 himself, on location. He says he hates it when enthusiastic people come up to him and ask him if he's been to the location described on his shirt and he has to reply sheepishly, "Uh, no, it was a gift."^'^ And then, for other people, the ultimate souvenir T would be the one that doubles as a community event T, advertising not only the event, but also the new owner's social ability to be accepted into an exotic group—to be treated like one of the gang. Now we see the evidentiary function cropping up.^^

The link between T-shirts and tourism is a strong one; the validity for such a statement is found in the stock narratives in which whole groups of people invest cultural significance. Here, the T-shirt is portrayed by the media

(including the T-shirt medium itself) as the quintessential souvenir gift.

Recently, there was a radio commercial that aired for Bud Light Beer, and it relied on this narrative. A man takes care of his friend's dog while she's out on vacation. When she returns, she gives him a T-shirt. He protests and demands Bud Light. She gives it to him, and their friendship is saved. And, of course there are those famous shirts that say something Hke, "My Mom went to Hawaii, and all she brought me back was this stupid T-shirt." [Such a

My favorite T-shirt is from Horseshoe Casino. I Like the fabric, fit and color, and it was a gift.

It is a navy blue T-shirt with a Channel Six News logo in red and yellow. The logo is embroidered and about 4" X 3". I wear it because I get a lot of people asking me where I got it and others who say they just like it. The cotton is of a higher quality than most of my other T- shirts. I was given the T-shirt before an OSU football game because I answered a trivia question correctly. I was even on TV for a few seconds.

265 shirt belies Enninger's statement that "clothing cannot be used to refer to

itself" (1992, p. 222).]

T-shirts, tourism, and cheapness seem to travel together. And it's the

same in Isla Mujeres. In an interview regarding the new island council's

efforts to attract a more desirable type of tourist, a travel agent on the island

explained to me that they are looking to attract the kind of tourist who will

come for more than a day or two and who will buy more than just a T-shirt.

On the other hand, a T-shirt is frequently the item that people seem to request

when I go on a trip. Right after "Don't forget to send me a post card," they say,

"Bring me back a T-shirt." I don't know if other people get this same request.

Maybe my friends are just demanding. Maybe they think I'm cheap. And,

maybe they say these things because they know that I will do neither.

That brings me to the idea of buying T-shirts for the purpose of trading

them. You see, souvenir T-shirts travel both ways. Walking in the streets of

Isla Mujeres would make this clear. Mayan bodies wearing University of

Wisconsin or Cmcinnati Bengals T-shirts. Many islenos agree that a shirt is a

common gift from visitors returning to the island, and Isla Mujeres does a lot of return business. And many people remember who gave them particular shirts. Maybe I should take my T-shirt survey on the road to Mexico... do a cross-cultural analysis. And I have to admit that I have become caught up in this moral economy, too. In fact, my friend Fernando, a waiter at Chi Chi's and Charlie's Bar asked me to bring back shirts from Ohio when I return. He

266 said that, although he has one, "No es auténtica." It isn't real. He wants one

that has something more on it than just the word "Ohio"; something from

the university maybe. And here's that issue of authenticity again, and

showing up in a most interesting place. After all, the college logo wars aren't

over yet. Not so long ago, a judge ruled against Ohio University's attempt to

copyright the name of the state. What a beautiful convergence.

Authenticity in T-shirt design shows up in a strange way among the

various islands of the Caribbean, too. I have noticed at least five different T-

shirt designs that have exactly the same graphics on them, but below those are

written the names of different places. Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Isla Mujeres: all

represented by the same picture. One example would be a shirt that displays a

rough sketch of Rastafarians dancing. Another is a smiling face with a red bandana. The message here seems to be that the only thing that differentiates

any of these islands is its name. In fact, one shirt that I purchased on the

island explicitly states this: "Same Shit, Different Island" (see figure 7.1). And

that name is ultimately just a label that locates the origin of the shirt. And then, chances are that the islands aren't really even the origin of the T-shirts; production activities probably take place somewhere else. In that case, all the name of the island really serves to locate is the site of the shirt's consumption: the point of sale. That clues us in to a big part of the whole T- shirt complex.

267 Figure 7.1: T-Shirt: "Same Shit, Different Island'

268 This particular T-shirt also serves to illustrate another aspect of the confusion of origins: the sale of Cancun T-shirts in the shops of Isla Mujeres.

It seems that there needn't be any connection at all between the advertisement/souvenir and either the site of production or the site of consumption. And yet, for some T-shirt owners, that is what the garment is all about.^^ An even more particular example would be the sale of "Senor

Frog's" T-shirts on Isla Mujeres. This Cancun nightspot is particularly popular with the American college spring break crowd. Although I've never been there, I know a lot of people who have. But it seems funny to me that anyone could (or would) buy a T-shirt advertising a bar that they might never have even gone to, and which is located in a city that they're not even in at the time.^^ Can we even talk of authenticity here?

And if you're skeptical too, apparently people do this, because the shirts do sell. I asked a woman who runs a T-shirt shop on the main street in town about this. She said that she had to sell the Cancun shirts alongside the Isla shirts because the Isla Mujeres shirts were more expensive—they're printed in smaller runs. If she didn't have the Cancun shirts, some of her shelves would

Although I do not really have a favorite shirt, one of the shirts I really like was hand- painted in France. It is a painting of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers." I bought it from this small shop in an alley that heads up a hill. I was with my mom and great aunt. It reminds me of the beach that we visited in that small town.

Bicentennial of the French Revolution. White with a head of a modem "Mariaime" (revolutionary woman). Bought in Paris during the celebrations.

269 be bare. However, when I asked her if the customer's price for a Cancun shirt was less than that for an Isla shirt, she smiled and laughed, "Of course not!"

Isla-Ts

With all this talk about T-shirts, I haven't yet addressed the concept that, as objects imbued with cultural significance, T-shirts don't just work on the level of individual communication and identification; they can also be seen as keys to the cultures in which they are bought, sold, traded, and worn.

They indicate the limits of what a society v\dll tolerate. For example, 1 think it says a lot about the culture of tum-of-the-century Columbus that a person can walk down the street in a T-shirt inscribed with "Fuck the System" and be neither ostracized nor arrested.^® But even more specifically, there are times when we can see in T-shirts a mirror image of the things of importance to people in their daily communal lives; we can see the traces of historical, economic, and social relationships. There are three T-shirts that 1 want to examine in relation to the mixture of cultures that attends the tourist trade on Isla Mujeres.

I don't know if it was my favorite, but my "F**k Michigan" had a twisted sentimental value since I purchased it my freshman year. Such a shirt was contradictory of a reserved meirmer. Unfortunately, I no longer have the shirt because it had to be cut off of me last fall when I fractured my collarbone while playing football.

270 International Pizza Delivery

The first T-shirt is one that has been sold to tourists at Rolandi's, an

Italian restaurant which caters to a higher class of clientele. Rolandi's sells T- shirts to its customers, but these are different in design from the ones that the waitstaff wear. Actually, the waiters have another style of uniform shirt that they prefer to wear, which is made of a smoothly woven white cotton fabric and has a button-down front. All the same, Rolandi's sells Ts with about eight different graphics to choose from, all of which are related to pizzas. For example, one shows a woman eating pizza; another shows a fish with a pizza.

But the one that really captured my attention depicts a beach with pahn trees and three Spanish galleons riding at anchor offshore. On the beach, a few

"Indians" (who look more Mohawk than Mayan) are engaged in the act of accepting a pizza from a conquistador. Below this picture is the name of the restaurant and its location.

It's a cute idea—especially for a restaurant known for its pizzas, but it's also one that draws a lot from the history of the restaurant and the history of the island. First off, the owner of the restaurant is a Swiss-Italian, so we could see a international relationship between the arrival in the "New World" of

Columbus and that of Sandro Rolandi. In fact, Sandro tends to travel to the island on his private yacht, which rides at anchor off the pahn-covered beach of Playa Norte when he's visiting the restaurant—just like those galleons.

And, apparently, Rolandi's was the first restaurant to serve pizza in Isla

271 Mujeres. Since then, three more locally-owned pizza restaurants have opened

their doors. These tend to serve a more mixed population, including both

tourists and islanders, perhaps because of their lower prices. It's an era of

more pizza to the people. Interestingly, Domino's has recently opened an

outlet as well, complete with a bevy of blue mopeds for its drivers. To my

knowledge, Domino's is the only international chain that is currently

established on the island, and it's success or failure there may well be a tell­

tale for the island's future. (A Subway sandwich shop opened—and closed—in

the years before I began my research.)

At the moment, despite a heavy print advertising campaign, Domino's

doesn't seem to be doing very well. The fact is that most islanders do not have

the kind of cash to lay out for one of their pizzas. The prices do not appear to

be much (if at all) different from those charged in the United States, and for

the majority of islanders, that is a fortune to spend on dinner, particularly

considering that a large pie costs roughly the equivalent of three or four days

pay at minimum wage.) One could argue that the pricing makes it clear that

Domino's target market includes tourists, not islanders, but then the question

becomes: Do the tourists who seek out Isla Mujeres want a slice of the

corporate American pizza, or would they prefer a taco instead?

It looks like the taco is winning. As I took in the sun's rays during the weeks of Spring Break 1999 (Isla Mujeres' prime tourist season), I saw several

Domino's employees hawking pizza by the slice on the beach. Upon

272 questioning one, I learned that she had been sent to do this job because the phones just weren't ringing; business was dead. I wished her luck, but I didn't buy a piece of the pie. Not long later, she was surrounded by four Naval patrolmen and escorted—in a friendly and gentle marmer—off the beach. At least it's nice to know that the rules against vendors on the beach apply to multinational corporations, and not just to the women and children from

Chiapas who come north to sell their beautifully handmade goods to the basking tourists.

Love that Shark

The back of this T-shirt depicts a cartoon drawing of a blond woman with a body like Barbie's, wearing a hot pink bikini, and a shark, standing on its tail and wearing swim trunks, sunglasses, and a big grin (see figure 7.2).

The shark is shown to be saying, "Save water. Drink beer!" and it is carrying a beer—presumably to the woman. The shirt's caption reads, "Love that Shark!"

It seems as though these T-shirts were sold on the island a few years ago because I have never seen them for sale in a store, but I have seen two or three islenos wearing ones that look as though they have been worn and washed many times. The person on whom I have seen it most often is a man who works on the comer of Madero and Hidalgo, the main street in town.

His job involves renting out golf carts and motorbikes to the tourists. I now know that these T-shirts were sold on the island a few years ago in Hacienda

273 Figure 7.2: T-Shirt: "Love that Shark"

274 Gomar, a tourist attraction, on the far side of the island where tourists can pay

to swim with the eight- and nine-foot-long nurse sharks that are kept in pens.

The rental joint is owned by Gomar as well.

I remember when I first saw this T-shirt, and I frankly couldn't figure

out what it meant. Perhaps that is why I remember it so well. I did my best to

make sense of the picture and the caption, but I just didn't have enough

cultural information to put the pieces of the puzzle together. What I was

searching for was the obtuse meaning. After all, sharks are a big part of life on

most tropical islands, and it is no different on Isla Mujeres. As I mentioned,

there are tourist attractions where tourists swim sharks. (This species of shark

is fairly gentle, and I've only heard one story about a person being bitten by

one in Isla Mujeres.) There are also some nurse sharks kept in tanks, as exemplary of the typical wildlife, at the aquarium at El Garrafon, a national snorkeling park. In addition, there are scuba diving tours which take tourists to the underwater "Cave of the Sleeping Sharks" which is located just a short distance off the coast. Apparently, two fishermen accidentally discovered this cavern where the particular movement of the currents enables sharks to

"sleep" on the floor of the sea while still processing enough oxygen through their gills. (While some people say there are no sharks there anymore, others argue that there are. Never having gone diving there, I cannot say for sure either way.) Finally, I have seen fishermen hauling dead sharks out of their

275 boats, transporting them to restaurants where tourists order them up for dinner. I guess hammer-heads and other more dangerous sharks can be found about fifty miles out to sea, and catching them can be a lucrative business; the fins and other "waste" products are shipped to Asia, while the islanders take the "good" cuts home.

Despite all of these connections between tourists (which I take the blonde woman on the shirt to represent) and sharks on and around Isla

Mujeres, the message on the shirt just didn't make sense....that is, until I had gotten to know a few more people and had learned a bit more about the socio­ cultural dynamics on the Island of Women. It wasn't until my third research trip that I finally figured the shirt out. I was in the disco. La Palapa, one night when I noticed a particular islander dancing very closely with a woman who was clearly a tourist. It wasn't the first time I'd seen him with a tourist woman, and I remarked to my companions that he certainly seemed to get around. "Oh, he's a tiburon. He's got a different woman almost every week.

He stays with them, and they pay for him." "You mean he's a gigolo?" "No, they don't pay him, they just pay for everything." "Oh, is that common?" I asked. "Yes, there are a few of them, but Julio and Alejandro are the worst.

You should be careful of them." So, that's when I figured it out. Suddenly the

T-shirt made perfect sense. The tiburones, the sharks, are island men who make the rounds, and a lot of times they are waiters or bartenders who meet a

276 lot of tourists while they're working—often on the beach. Through dialogue, I

had merged my horizon with that of the islanders, and the obtuse meaning

became clear.

Mayan Culture

Of the three shirts that I've discussed in detail, this is the only one that

I personally purchased (see figure 7.3). It cost me three dollars when I bought it on the last day of my third visit, and I picked it up because all of my clothes were dirty and I needed a shirt to wear home. Since it is the only T-shirt I've ever bought at a tourist spot, it took me a while to pick out... the least of all possible evils, so to speak. Now, I think I really made the right choice, because

I've come to consider it a particularly rich piece of data.

Unlike "Love that Shark," which is really an inside joke, this one is definitely a T-shirt for tourist consumption, and there are many variations of it...different colors and levels of quality. The three-dollar price tag on this one indicates its lack of quality. On the front of the shirt is a graphic presentation of seven Mayan nobles and eight slaves (or captives). Drawn in profile, as is typical in much Mayan art, the priests and nobles stand wearing the traditional ceremonial clothing of the highest castes: yellow jaguar pelts and blue quetzal feathers. At their feet crouch the almost nude (save for loincloths) slaves, one of whom appears to be dead, impaled through the head by the staff of the central figure. Apparently, they have all had their

277 Figure 7.3: T-Shirt: "Mayan Culture'

278 fingernails pulled out. Sandwiching the graphic are the words MAYAN and

CULTURE. Nearer to the hem of the shirt is the requisite location label: "Isla

Mujeres, Mexico."

Now, there is nothing on the shirt to indicate the origin of the picture

or to explain what action the scene might be depicting. The viewer of the shirt

can only take the message to be, "This is Mayan culture... guys in exotic outfits

killing other almost-naked guys." Only a student of Mayan art would figure out that this is actually a crudely drawn version of a Mayan mural at

Bonampak, an archeological site which is located in Chiapas, far south of Isla

Mujeres. I came to realize this only after seeing the mural represented in book after book as the evidence that the Mayan culture was just as brutal as the

Aztec Culture (see for example Whitlock, 1976). Apparently, up until this mural's relatively recent discovery, Mayan rituals were not known to include the kinds of "tortures" pictured here. This shirt serves then to represent the

Mayan culture as violent and exotic, which fits in well with the general advertising campaign of Mundo Maya, an international association of Mayan tourist sites.

Although Isla Mujeres is part of the Mayan world, the mural from

Chiapas does little to tell potential visitors of what Isla Mujeres has to offer that is different from anywhere else in Mexico or the world. It seems to me that T-shirts ought to actually have some relationship to the place where they

279 are bought. The countless T-shirts with Olmec heads and Aztec designs that

can be bought in Isla Mujeres come to mind. As far as archeological evidence

is concerned, these cultures never existed on Isla Mujeres, and yet their

artifacts now represent its culture.

Cultural Capitalism

To some scholars, it may seem strange that an ethnographically

informed communication study would find recourse to T-shirts in a cultural

analysis. In fact, the stock anthropological narrative about T-shirts is the one

where the ethnographer returns to the "isolated native village" a year or two

after publishing the study. To his horror, the celebrator of pure indigenous

culture finds that those simple natives have traded in their traditional beads

and loincloths for the discarded T-shirts of "Western Civilization." The once

pristine tribe has been contaminated, and the anthropologist turns away in

horror, perhaps with the guilty feeling that he could be implicated in the

tragedy.

But what is that really all about? Capitalism. And what does it mean to

say that "We should keep capitalism out of these idyllic places"? Really, only

that the disadvantaged should remain so. That they should eschew the tools

of global capitalism that we all use, and remain the happy (but impoverished) simpletons who are, in effect, the easiest kind of people to exploit. If someone's going to do some "exploiting" of culture (and that seems

280 rather hard to avoid given the global situation), shouldn't it be managed by

the communities who welcome the T-shirt buying tourists into their homes?

Shouldn't they have the right to exploit their own culture?

In fact, Isla Mujeres is in an excellent position to capitalize on the

cultural tourism market because of its place in Mayan culture, its significant position in the history of the Spaniards' conquest of Mexico, and its colorful legends of pirates who lived there. What makes it different from the rest of

Mexican Caribbean destinations is this cultural history: a significant past, and this may be the best way of marketing the island in the future. And yet, these cultural resources currently remain untapped. The island's history and culture long predate the development of other tourism centers in the state of

Quintana Roo, such as Cancun and Playa del Carmen. Its pueblo was first settled almost 150 years ago, not as a destination for international and domestic tourists, but rather as a home for fishermen and their families.

Because of this history, the social environment of the island has retained a rustic and unique flavor which many tourists find to be a refreshing change from what they consider to be a noisy, commercialized Cancun.

One way the island can present a cultural face to the world, inviting cultural tourists, is the use of an image or symbol which is culturally significant and relevant to the island's present situation. (See chapters 3 and

4 for a discussion of how these terms present an alternative manner of thinking which does not play upon the concept of "authenticity.") Such an

281 image could be included in brochures, internet web sites, promotional videos and telephone cards, and be used in various other manners as well. T-shirts, postcards, towels, replicas and other souvenirs travel a long way and work for years as advertising for a tourist location. If they are of a high quality, they present an image of a high quality destination. Therefore, a line of souvenirs could be developed which would present Isla Mujeres as a culturally and historically different tourist destination, not just a small tropical island like all the others.

One particularly significant image which the island could use is a photograph of the head of a statue of a woman which was discovered by the archeologist Augustus Le Plongeon on the south point of the island in 1876.

Historians agree that the island takes its name from statues such as this one, which Cordoba encountered on the Spaniards' first plarmed voyage to México in 1517. While historians, including Villanueva Madrid (former mayor of Isla

Mujeres) were aware of the statue's discovery, until now, its whereabouts and its appearance were unknown (1994, p. 4). Strangely, I encountered this photograph in a journal in Ohio State University's library—thousands of miles from the place where its importance could be most appreciated. Such an image provides a face for the name of Isla Mujeres, and which would illustrate to potential guests that Isla Mujeres is a location different from any other in the world (see figure 7.4).

282 Figure 7.4: T-Shirt Design: Mayan Statue from Isla Mujeres

283 While the use of the image in government-sponsored promotional material requires the support of the Fideicomiso del Turismo and the municipal government, the manufacture and sale of souvenirs could be conducted on the level of private enterprise. Although many T-shirts and souvenirs with cultural images are currently sold on the island, none of these images are original to the island. A T-shirt with an Olmec head or an Aztec calender is not the same as one which is directly related to the island, and many tourists have expressed an interest in "buying something that not only says Isla Mujeres in words, but also in pictures." The market for such products is large and empty. However, government involvement in this area is important because of the danger of pirated copies of the images being used.

Such a theft would not only lead to a lower standard of quality for the products, but it would also subvert the final aspect of this proposal.

The proposal involves the donation of a percentage of the profit from the sale of each object bearing this image to be deposited in a fund that would be used for the benefit of the common people who live and work on the island. While much is being done to better the conditions of the laborers and their families there, a fund which directly relates the success of tourism to the prosperity of the common people could enhance the quality of service provided by tourism workers. Administered by the Fideicomiso, proceeds from the sale of the souvenirs could be used to finance items and services

284 which would benefit large numbers of community members. Some examples of items in which laborers have expressed interest include a small hearse, a school bus, and an adult education program in English. Because profits will be reinvested into the community to better the standard of living for working islehos, the project will fulfill its phenomenological commitment to the movement away from abject research practices.

285 CHAPTERS

CONCLUSION

The main thrust of the methodological investigation presented in this dissertation is to articulate the abject nature of a constellation of practices long associated with the processes of doing and writing up ethnographic research.

The second chapter compares the practices of ethnographers from a host of academic disciplines against the phenomenological and hermeneutic principles first gathered and set forth by Lingis (1982), to wit:

1. Despite the fragmentary nature of all data, science presents the natural and social worlds as being comprised of coherent wholes.

2. The symbolic systems through which knowledge is transferred actually function to obscure the original insights on which those symbolic structures have been imposed.

3. The attribution of the characteristics of these symbolic structures to real-world objects functions to obfuscate the true nature of the objects.

286 4. The objective style of social scientific reporting negates the inherent

differences between reality and sign systems, while erasing the singularity of

each individuaTs own experience, leading to anonymity.

5. This anonymity is symptomatic of the abdication of responsibility for

one's ethnographic utterances.

6. Expressing truth, which is situational, rather than merely

communicating, must be the primary goal of speech or expression, or in this

case, ethnography.

7. Thoughts requiring communication, whether those of the

researcher or the community, are those which present the needs and lacks of the speaker and their expression results in a process of the speaker's becoming weak (or abject).

Based on the results of this analysis of the ethnographic literature, the research problematic arises: "Can we come to social science knowledge in a manner which is less abject than past methods?" In order to determine the solution to that problematic, I have examined the very divergent alternatives of Performance Theory on the one hand, and statistical analysis on the other hand. The issues which arise in those theoretical contexts open up the door for the introduction of a phenomenological framework for conducting ethnographic fieldwork and for analyzing the rich data which can result from a research program which creatively seeks to minimize abjection. Chapter 3 goes on to discuss the practical possibilities involved in conducting such a

287 research program, while chapter 4 offers a perspective on the values which

can be associated with the introduction of questions characteristically posed by

theorists of the political economy of communication.

Having articulated the theoretical and methodological conditions for

the possibility of conducting research which seeks to correct for abjection as

much as possible, the dissertation then shifts to a more practical mode concerned with the limits of such an approach. The questions of "What do

the research process and its outcomes look like when social science is conducted in a manner cognizant of the abject tendencies embedded in ethnography?" are posed in relation to the case study location of Isla Mujeres,

México. The stylistic shift which occurs in this latter portion of the dissertation is indicative of the possibilities and limits which arise when theoretical issues are tested out in the social world, highlighting the need for new vocabularies and new grammars which are specific to the new situation and orientation.

Accepting the principles of community social action research as one means of correcting for abjection, the case study section seeks to achieve two broad site-specific goals. The first of these was "To come to an understanding of the cultural, social, and economic relationships between tourism and the island community—both as a whole, and as a constellation of various communities." Chapters 5, 6, and 7 present the outcomes associated with that goal, focussing on communication issues involved in the island's cultural

288 tourism. Additionally, the research process was geared towards a second goal based upon the understandings reached in relation to the first goal: "To provide information, service, and opportunities to community members which will lead to the amelioration of the collective island situation." This second goal opens up the question: "What possibilities arise when communities come to view a social science researcher as a viable means for achieving their own social and economic objectives?" At this temporal juncture, such a goal hinges much more heavily on the future of the research situation than it does on the past or the present.

In projects which involve only one community, adhering to the basic principles of social action research may be a much more simple proposition than it is in a situation with multiple communities which often overlap in membership. In complex situations such as the one which I chose for my case study, there are many communities, all of which have goals. And, oftentimes, those goals come into conflict. In the two-and-one-half years that I have been involved with the many communities on Isla Mujeres, I have experienced a variety of instances in which such conflicts became evident. In fact, one reason why I have felt an urgency in regard to the completion of this stage of the project is a complex of conflicts which center on "the future of the island."

Governmental agencies, ordinary citizens, and even many tourists have

289 corne to believe that the tourist trade on Isla Mujeres is withering when it seems as though it should be growing more fruitful. The question has become: "Where do we go from here?"

Even at this stage, this is a difficult question to answer. The rather recent formation of the Fideicomiso is symptomatic of the islanders' search for an answer. The sheer organization of the committee reflects the possible presence of conflicting interests and shows what they might be. It includes: 1) the representative of the national Secretary of Tourism; 2) a representative from each of the major tourism industries (hotels, restaurants, and taxistas);

3) representatives of several of the local caciques; 4) a representative from the municipal accounting office and one from state office; 5) and one official from the state and one from the municipal tax office (Secretaria de Hacienda y

Crédita Publico). While this last official chairs the committee, each member appears to be accorded an equal vote.

There is also a definite conflict of interests between island-dwelling supporters of "development" and the many tourist visitors who think of the island as "their cottage" and who value its unpretentious, inexpensive, friendly charm. How can development be managed without excluding the repeat-customers who support the island now? How can it be managed without harming working class islenos? They may make more money m the short run, but will it be eaten up by the increasing cost of living on the island?

Will the island become what my friend Fido, the taxista predicts: an island with such a high cost of living that only "ricli people"—mainly the foreigners

290 an d the caciques—Will be able to afford to live there, while the ordinary

laboring class moves to the continent in search of jobs in the newly

developing section of south central Quintana Roo? And what to make of the

self-styled "entrepreneurs" who first came to the island in the guise of

tourists from Europe and America, those who readily admit that they were

once the type of tourist—the not-too-wealthy tj'pe—which they now wish to

exclude? Claiming fortunes out of exploiting the island, selling it off

piecemeal to the highest bidder. You can see their yellow "For Sale" signs all

over the island now. Is this what "development" looks like?

With the recent election of new executive administrations on both the

state and municipal levels, islanders' hopes for positive change seem to be

running fairly high. Energetically, and with a long-term vision of the future,

the new governor's office is currently developing plans for the economic

rejuvenation of the state based at least partially on what has come to be seen

as the sure bet of increased tourism. My present involvement in this

discussion in the capacity of a consultant has afforded me an more intimate

perspective which has clarified a number of political economic issues which

once were much more obscured from view.

Although the economic development project remains in the planning

stages, two objectives appear to be primary. The first objective is to increase in

the short-term the amount of tourism dollars which flow into the economy

on a statewide basis. That involves augmenting the number of visitors, the length of their visits, and the number of areas which they visit. A couple of

291 the ideas which I have proposed to the development officials include a means towards their taking charge over the temporal aspects of the tourism cycle.

Increasing the amount of tourism during the months of the "low season" could be achieved through the organization and world-wide promotion of a varied schedule of annual cultural events, sporting competitions (including hiking, windsurfing, and swimming), expositions, conferences, and conventions—all geared towards very specific audiences.

Recognizing that locations develop good and bad reputations just as human beings do, a cost-benefit analysis of the College Spring Break phenomenon in Canciin could help to determine the social and economic costs of catering to that touristic population at the expense of others.

Alternative models, including ones which place greater emphasis on cultural and historical issues, could be valuable when considering modes of diversifying the touristic base. Such an orientation might include a program which calls for the construction of a network of museums, artisanal workshops, and schools which teach the Mayan and Spanish languages and cultures to visitors (and English to residents). International affiliations with universities and other pedagogically oriented institutions could facilitate such a program, which could involve a variety of international cultural and artistic exchange programs.

The state government's second objective involves the long-term plan of bringing in capital through foreign investment into newly created resort

292 areas. The re-zoning of a large portion of the south central coast line of

Quintana Roo has opened the door for this kind of development. Yet, as the

officials realize, an open door does not guarantee anyone's entrance. For that

reason, plans are underway for a promotional campaign which may involve

print, video, and electronic messages. An informational web site has been

proposed as being the centerpiece of such an invitation. When asked, I

advocated that they consider a technologically-sophisticated web design which

showcases the cultural richness of Quintana Roo alongside its natural beauty.

Using elements of Mayan culture in the design would help to reinforce the

image of Quintana Roo as place with a unique identity in the global tourism

marketplace. The cutting-edge features of the design could help to identify the

state as a stable and yet progressive location in which a large investment

would bring sure returns.

An example of a design aspect which incorporates both themes is a navigational strategy imbedded in the site. Using streaming video

technologies, visitors to the site could "travel" through its multiple pages on

the sac he (white stone roads) which ancient Mayans constructed as their routes through the jungles. Opening with a breathtaking shot of the ancient harbor in Tulum, visitors could "land on the beach" and then be instructed on their journeys through audio, video, and textual cues. Short segments depicting travel on the sac be might usher them on a virtual tour through the jungle to the pyramids and other archeological sites, to the proposed site of development, and to major cities in the state, including Cozumel, Cancun,

293 and Chetumal, the state capital. The importance of these cities would be

presented with the needs, preferences, and expectations of international

investors given priority, thus including important information about the

superstructure and economic infrastructure of the state. For example,

pertinent information regarding government departments and agencies,

including the Secretaria de Hacienda \j Credito Publico and SECOFE, could

be included in the Chetumal area of the web site.

As always, the future is a horizon of possibilities which remain open, not yet fully determined. What does exist is the historically-mediated

situation at hand. Thirty years have passed since the Economic Development

Studies Group of the Hudson Institute advocated tourism as the road to prosperity in its Overview of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico (1969). Since then, the territory has become a state, and the massive towers of international hotel chains, amusement parks, fancy boutiques, and shopping malls of the

Cancun Hotel Zone attest to the success with which the Institute's proposal eventually met. And the Mayan crowds on the crumbling sidewalks that line the dusty streets of ever-sprawling downtown Cancun also attest to the proposal's success.

Over these past thirty years, the Yucatan peninsula has experienced a massive population displacement as thousands of Yucatecos and

Quintanarooenses have left their pueblos to find their fortunes in the plastic city. Despite the hope that Nagorski penned in his section of the

Overview, that tourism might "bring prosperity to people who have never

294 known much more than a simple subsistence level of existence," (p. 76) it seems to have brought nothing of the sort for the majority of those people. In fact, I have heard more than one disgusted former resident of Cancun refer to it as "that den of serpents." The social costs of building Cancun do not appear to have been calculated carefully enough. With thirty years of experience of tourism in Cancun behind them, one can only hope that government officials will calculate those costs more carefully in their future ventures—in

Isla Mujeres as well as in points further south (see figure 8.1). In such a situation, to assist in calculating those social costs and to provide a basis for policy alternatives is one provenance of a truly social science—one that recognizes and resists abjection on multiple levels.

295 Figure 8.1: A Southern View from El Présidente

(photograph by Luis Alberto Tenorio)

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309 GLOSSARY

The terms listed in this glossary are defined only according to their usage in the present work. Many of them have additional (or even conflicting) formal and/or slang definitions within Mexico and other Spanish- and Maya­ speaking countries. agiias negras sewage (lit. black waters) Archiva Municipal Municipal Archive auténtica authentic or real baile dance Bonita pretty borracho d ru n k cacique local power broker cagiiama one-liter bottle of beer calle street camiseta shirt cancion song claro sure colaborador co-laborer (and collaborator) colonia residential village or settlement com padre friend com a how com panero com panion duena proprietor (f.) extranar to miss Fideicomiso de Turismo official local tourism planning com m ittee La Garda Rubia The Fat Blonde giiera gabacha White American female tourist hacienda estate ha gar hom e harm iga an t

310 h u ip ile traditional Mayan white cotton dress incomtinicado isolated or cut off îsla Mujeres Island of Women islote small island isleno islander investigaciôn research project or investigation llena full loncheria restaurant serving only lunch m aestro teacher m alécon seawall or breakwater jMatalos mosquitos! Kill the mosquitos! m ilpa com field La Morena Vieja Old Brunette m u e lle pier or dock pachanga party El Palacio Municipal seat of the municipal governm ent peso Mexican monetary unit (roughly equivalent to 1/9th of a US dollar at the time of the research project) playa beach poblacion flotante day-trippers Poena mixture (and a local youth hostel) Pocnacense a resident of the local youth hostel pueblo tow n querida dear or sweetie quisa a small nocturnal lizard Quintanarooense native of Quintana Roo sac be ancient Mayan white stone roads Secretaria de Hacienda y Credito Publico Governmental Tax Office siesta mid-day rest taqueria taco stand taxis ta taxi driver

311 tesis thesis or dissertation tiburôn shark or ladies' man tienda store La Trigena The Brunette turista to u rist universidâd university vacia em p ty visitantes diarios overnight tourist visitors Yanqiii Y ankee Yucateco native of Yucatan zazil-ha luminous water zocalo town square or plaza

312