"The Professional Stranger", by Michael Agar, was by far my favorite book out of the ones that I have read for this class. He has a very open and honest way of discussing methods and problems with methods in anthropology. He also thinks that the "traditional communities" have disappeared, which were the focus of anthropology up until now. He attributes this disappearance to increasing globalization, and subsequently definitions of anthropology and fieldwork methods have to change with the time. (p.3). Agar says that increasing globalization changes how we look at the other as well as how we are writing our fieldnotes and ethnographies. I love what he says here: "The politically active 'others', and their enemies, now read what we produce and add new dimensions of responsibility and authority".(p.3). It is interesting to me to think about these exotic and unfamiliar cultures now reading the ethnographies that are about them. It certainly does change things. I think that this can be thought of in a positive way: now the ethnographies are not just for the scholars of the discipline of anthropology, but now the cultures that these writings are on are reading them as well which can in turn help us find more accurate descriptions and interpretations; a more collaborative project, if you will. Agar sees this interest and more collaborative effort as a "fantastic opportunity - and a potential disaster".(p.3). I don't think that it has to be a complete disaster if the input and feedback from the "other" is recognized with a general understanding that the anthropologist is the scholarly "expert"with more training in interpretation. It is something to think about anyway, and I am sure that on many aspects of anthropology my opinion will change with experience.
I don't see that the very definition of anthropology and methods in anthropology have to be drastically different, I just think that with increasing globalization, educational opportunities and a general awareness, that the discipline can grow. It can change and grow with the times....after all, isn't part of cultural anthropology based on different INTERPRETATIONS?
On page 4, Agar talks about the fact that in the old model of anthropology, a picture was painted of the "other" and it was never thought about that they had the capacity to change and grow just like our culture. So what now? It seems to me that not much thought was put into the fact that the "other" was going to change too. I do think that that might be typical of the time and let's not forget that wonderful colonial attitude that spawned the interest in anthropology in the first place.
On page 5, Agar briefly states that now anthropologists are writing ethnographies with more of their personal self coming through so that : "So naturally, if you decide to make such previously hidden parts of the story explicit, then the kinds of information you go after and the way you write it have to change as well". This ties into what I have previously discussed and that is the autobiographical tone of self-realization in ethnographic writing and that this does in fact change everything you look at and how you interpret it. Apparently he agrees with me. He discusses the title: "Writing Culture is Poetics and Politics". Our poetics, (meaning how we write our ethnographies), affect the politics of culture. He is stressing the importance of the influence of ethnographic writing: what we see and how we see it. Agar also believes, and I have to agree with him at this point, that ethnography now needs to see as well as include the "bigger picture". I think that this ties into his discussions of globalization thus far in the sense that as I have said before, there are really no isolated communities anymore that are simply untouched by the rest of civilization and/or other cultures. He says that we are all "swim in the same interconnected global soup". It is also interesting to think about the fact that ethnographer and the "other" already know things about each other before first contact. When we take this into consideration, we also must see that there are many factors contributing to people's everyday lives. This means that in order to write an ethnography that is closest to the truth, we must look at the much broader picture. Of course, this will in turn make fieldwork, or ethnography in general a much more difficult task. For this reason, it is a good thing that there are increasingly more studies/classes on methodology of fieldwork because I think that we must really be trained for this type of work because the spectrum has gotten larger. It is no longer about studying the isolated group but now we have to think internationally as well. I think that is what I mean when I talk about the bigger picture. Even though Agar believes now in seeing the bigger ethnographic picture, he still believes that some of the fundamentals of anthropology and ethnography are the same:

"The story now calls for different information of a different sort, sometimes from different people, but the way you learn it still involves the paradox of professional distance and personal involvement....The 'funnel' metaphor is still apt, with its emphasis on openness, emergence, and the gradual narrowing of focus as the bigger picture turns more clear. The music has changed, and there's a couple of new ways to bend the notes, but the fundamentals remain the same. They have to. The fundamentals are part of being human".(p.7).

I really like what he says here. He has a true respect for some of the anthropological traditions as well as the fundamentals but still believes that anthropology and subsequently ethnography can grow and change with the genera; foundation remaining the same.
Agar talks about a few ways in which anthropological fieldwork should change and grow with the times if you will, to broaden the spectrum and see more: 1) is one that I have been discussing and that is the use of the NARRATIVE, rather than what he calls the ENCYCLOPEDIC. He says the encyclopedic is more definitions and factual writing and he wants to see more background and an explanantion of how the ethnographer arrives at these interpretations and conclusions. 2) he talks about how we need to see more participation in participant observation. He says that: "...participant excperiences lend themselves to story formats, narratives of what people said and did".(p.9). And again he says:

"Ethnography...it's about the practices of everyday life, the way those practices are built out of shared knowledge, plus all the other things that are relevant to the moment. Raw material comes from active participation in those moments, and "data" appear in the narrative form that naturally represents them. One's job as an ethnographer is to account for what goes on, on the ground, in living color".(p.9-10).

The narrative is about VARIATION and reading in between the lines. I think that one day when I am able to get into a field, I will love this.
Agar mentions that ethnographers in the past "strove for the shared".(p.10). I don't think that I knew this. I do see however, that given the colonial state of mind of past anthropological projects, that it would naturally be the trend to find out if the "other" was anything like us, instead of celebrating their difference. A bit culturally narcissistic, no? Agar says: "...I think of the basic data of ethnography as the DIFFERENCES that appear".(p.22). I also am starting to think that maybe ethnographic training in fieldwork was perhaps a little narrow, which meant that anthropologists lacked the "eye" to be able to see the bigger picture. But....anthropology is changing now and I think that it has become hard to define what proper fieldwork entails and just what are we really supposed to be looking at. I love this quote:

"But now, global and national histories blow through communities like a hurricane. In a line attributed to Roy D'Andrade(Carrithers, 1992:21), studying culture today is like studying snow in the middle of an avalanche. People show up for an interview with a mixed bag of selves whose source is everything from their grandparents to the Simpsons. You ride off to a traditional ceremony in a Ford Bronco with a Pearl Jam tape in the cassette deck. Your local key contact is off giving a shaman workshop in Palm Beach. What in the world are we studying anymore?"(p.11). !!!!!

Well said. Well said. Life with its people in it has changed and so should anthropological methods if we are still to agree that cultural anthropology is about the studying people.
This problem involving the bigger picture, thinking internationally and broadening the scope of interpretation is described in a term that Agar coined: "crisis of representation".(p.12).

Agar talks about method on page 14. Method has two parts. The first part is making the method "pubic" so that the information is open to interpretation by natives as well as scholars but he stresses the second part of method which is to bear in mind that it must be coming form "the point of view of the reader". In a few of the books that I have been reading, the authors say somewhat of the same thing but that to give the chance to the "non-anthropologists" to evaluate and make their own interpretation creates a bit of a sticky situation because then the question can be asked: What is this really about and who is really the true expert?
Agar mentions on page 15 the John Van Maanen books: "Tales of the Field" and "Representation in Ethnography". I read both a couple of years ago and yes they are interesting perspectives on the "process" and the "product" of ethnography and more importanty how these two tie together. Alot of these two books are on ethnographic styles that include more of the ethnographer in the writings which as I have said before seems to be becoming a new trend. This type of method also helps the reader with their scepticism on the subject matter and interpretations of it. Why should we believe this ethnographer? If they narrate more of the process then the reader can see more of how they arrived at these thoughts and they begin to trust the material and athropologist more.
Now, when the ethnographer begins to talk more honestly about methods, etc., Agar believes that we need to include and give credit to the informants and local people. I see this as being an important part of method as well. They are part of it all, obviously, and including them in the writing is something that can make the finished product more credible as well. We mustn't deny how big of a part of it they were and are. That would be a little backwards I think. Agar stresses the importance of the ethnographer not utilizing full power and control over the end product by excluding the ways in which the ethnographer was helped by the said culture and how much influence they had on the research itself.(p.16).

Agar talks about something in chapter one that I will discuss now but surely will come back to at some point as it is somehting I have thought a lot about, despite my being a novice, to say the least. My advisor had asled me what I thought I might like to do sometime down the line with anthropology. Before I even answered I listened to her tell me that now the trend for younger anthropologists was to do their own research but also to become active in these communities, instead of just watching. She took the words right out of my mouth. Since then, however, I have not changed my mind but it has made me think of the tendency of the younger anthropologist to become the political activist. This has then led me to think about crossing the "line" somewhere and having to be careful of what I thought needed to be "fixed". So, we have talked about ethnography leaning now more towards more interpretation, rather than just "encycopedic" ethnography, or stating of the facts. Agar has a vvery interesting paragraph on this very subject. I feel I must quote him as I could not have said this better:

"Underneath all different interpretations of the term CRITICAL lies a common thread-you look at local context and meaning, just like we aleays have, but then you ask, WHY are things this way? What power, what interests, wrap this local world so tight that it feels like the natural order of things to its inhabitants? Are those inhabitants even AWARE of those interests, aware that they have alternatives? And then-the critical move that blows the old scientific attitude right off the map-maybe I, the ethnographer, should SHOW them choices they don't even know they have. Maybe I should shift from researcher to political activist".(p.26).

Here lies the ultimate power that the ethnographer has but also the power of linking the local to the global, (or broadening the spectrum of why). When we create this link, or rather when we consider it in our ethnographies, we HAVE to be careful to not use this as a way of validating the "western" life as better. In other words, we have to be careful not to use this link between the "other" and the global as merely a comparison where the "other",(especially in a third world country), has no chance of even looking ok much less put together. A possibe example of ethnocentrism? So what do we do? We think about what Agar says here: " NO UNDERSTANDING OF A WORLD IS VALID WITHOUT REPRESENTATION OF THOSE MEMBERS' VOICES".(p.27). And: "Ethnography is populist to the core, in this sense-skeptical of the distant institutions that control local people's lives; certain of the fact that the best society is built from the participation of its members in decisions that affect them; aggravated by injustices caused by distant institutions that force people to live in worlds not of their own making".(p.27). We must understand each aspect of their culture as its own entity. CULTURAL RELATIVISM at its best!
However, there is also the opposite to think about and that is because the culture that the ethnographer is studying the "exotically unfamiliar", there is a tendency to think that because this culture is so "unfamiliar" that this "exoticness" justifies wrongdoings "in the name of cultural relativity".(p.25). We need to think or keep thinking along the lines that the people within the said culture should be active participants in their lives and future decisions.

Agar talks about applied and critical anthropology and although I keep reading this part....I am still not exactly sure what the difference between the two is....

He talks about one of the fundamentals of ethnography as having to do with a "rich point". I understood this as when a situation occurs in the field of a foreign culture, we realize that we do not understand this situation because our "assumptions about how the world works"(p.31) do not help us in anyway to understand this foreign and strange situation. He explains that a rich point is a gap in understanding for the ethnographer. His conclusion is that this is what the very essence of ethnographic research is all about. This makes the idea of ethnographic research that much more exciting to me. I think that this is a great way to simplify ethnography. The very fact that they are called "rich points" says a lot as well as to the fascinating nature of fieldwork itself. He then makes sure to mention that "rich points are OUR problem and certainly NOT a glitch in their culture. That one made me laugh! Yes. Yes. If only we all thought that way!

He defines Ethnography as containing 3 major themes:
1) Participant Observation
2) Rich Points (which he describes as being the actual "data")
3) Coherence, which is the "guiding assumption" that begins with the rich point to initiate a proper understanding and interpretation of the situation or observation within the context of the said culture.
There are some more steps and concepts as well such as "frame". I understand the "frame" to be the script or a series of happenings and events that later have to be linked together or separated as intepretations of their own. The next step will be validation and modification: "As you use the frame, you not only work to validate it, but you also work to modify it through use".(p.32). He says the validation and modification are the ways in which you understand the rich points. Although I have previously read other books on methodology, keeping this simplified outline on methodology is a good starting point. I treasure this book as the entire thing is written in a very clear manner for a novice to read and will be my reference as a staring point in my final project. We then move on from validation and modification to begin to understand situations and happenings as if we were part of that culture. We have to begin to see life from their point of view. I think that without this step, the ethnography is rendered useless. He does admit that this is an oversimplification but that the existence of frames and the constant search for the connection between them from a native's point of view is the goal. He has these diagrams that are supposed to show the supposed train of thought as well as how the frames eventually match up. I have looked at them over and over again but I am afraid that I still find them confusing. Perhaps this is because I am no good at math/statistics or perhaps it is just a matter of them not being my ilustrations of frames. Time will tell I guess. One theme that I have seen in just about all these books is a mention of how once these frames are looked at and interptreted time and time again, many aspects of the said culture's life as well as unexpected interpretations of this culture come to light. The ethnographer constantly modifies the frames again and again, untilo there is what Erving Goffman, Charles Frake and Michael Agar call STRIPS.(p.33). It makes sense to me as the frames being small parts of a larger interpretation called a strip which is only formed after frequent modifications are made. Agar calls this "frame resolution", which is defined as: "...the so-called holistic point of view, the part of the analysis where larger frames are constructed that show the more general patterns that characterize the ethnographer's emergent understanding of group life".(p.35). This sounds really exciting to me. It is not that I think that I will uncover all expected realizations and interpretations but it does sound to me almost as if ethnographic research and writing will be a bit like going on a treasure hunt!
Agar, as well as some of the other authors of these books, talk about the use of statistics. I am extremely intimidated by statistics. Could be due to the fact that I took a horrible class in it a few years back. Nevertheless, I am intimidated by the subject and woe the day when I have to put it to use. I am not trying to learn statistics from these books, but will use them as a guide for my fieldwork projects in the future I am sure. In the meantime, I think I will try another class that is not taught online. One thing regarding the use of statistics that I find interesting is that some stress the use of it in fieldwork analyzation more than others. I was thinking that maybe it had to do with whether the anthropologist was influenced sociologically or not. I do know that sociologists rely directly upon statistics but that there are surely some anthropologists that disagree on whether, or how much to use.
Again, I love the way in which he describes certain aspects of anthropology that are either constantly up for debate or seem to be always open for endless interpretation. On page 36, he goes into further discussion of rich point, frames and strips. It is just that he is so matter-of-fact in his writing. I really enjoyed what he says here about the interpretation and writing of ethnographies:
6) "The representation you build is neither "theirs" nor is it "yours". Instead, it is built to fill the initial space where rich points occurred between you. It is a representation of the spaces between, built in collaboration by ethnographer and locals". That is one that I will always remember.
7) "Culture is constructed, created and built up in the spaces that the rich points define. However, it relies on universal human similarities to make any connection possible at all".
8) "The representation is not fixed; it can change and grow, either in the course of a single period of time or over repeated periods of research".

What he says for number 7 is so interesting to me. In the past, when I have given thought to the inspiration behind the concept of ethnography, I have immediately thought of it existing as a celebration of the cultural differences of human life, rather than having anything at all to do with similarities. But he is right. Again. We all have similarities in us which is how we are included at all in the human race. In order to recognize difference, we have to recognize, consciously or subconsciously, our similarities. How's that for the world's simplest statements?! true though. I guess that we can just celebrate both. He really believes in some humility on the part of the ethnographer in the sense that the locals are a large part of the process and that the final draft of the ethnography is not the absolute truth.