Tuesday, September 9, 2008

At 'home' and 'away': Reconfiguring the field for late twentieth-century anthropology:

Virginia Caputo discusses what constitutes a "field" when an ethnographer attempts to conduct fieldwork at "home". She thinks that if only some of the fieldwork is "deemed 'appropriate' " then we will only learn from and read the ethnographies that are under this umbrella and never broaden our horizons by stretching the umbrella to cover "unorthodox" anthropological arenas. (p.19).
I found it interesting when Caputo discussed how viewing culture as a "discrete self-contained entity" put anthropology as having a "colonial view of the world". When we set the boundaries of fieldwork around the "primitive" cultures that are far away, we thereby enhance the colonial way of thinking that the "other" is "primitive" and these cultures are the ones that are to be studied in order to be under the umbrella of "true fieldwork". She discusses the need for expansion of anthropological boundaries and as a humble student who has much more to study, I agree thus far.
"To overdetermine fieldwork practices is therefore to undermine the very strength of ethnography, the way in which it deliberately leaves openings for unanticipated discoveries and directions. If in cleaving to a methodological orthodoxy, anthropologists a priori limit rather than leave open the scope of circumstances to be studied, they will be operating at epistemological cross purposes with their own disciplinary objectives. Thus the answer to what happens to anthropology if its practitioners adapt their fieldwork practices to the exigencies of new circumstances is that it wouldn't remain as anthropology if they didn't." (Amit, p.17).
Mobility of the "other" in combination with increasing globalization leads us to re-evaluate the definition of fieldwork. Mobilization and globalization change the concept of the "other".

Amit introduces the discussion of doing fieldwork at "home". If the ethnographer is at "home", then what constitutes the "field"? He introduces the question of whether fieldwork remains to be fieldwork if the ethnographer is "home"? I think that anthropology is based somewhat on interpretation and with this in mind, it becomes difficult to set boundaries. We need boundaries to be able to recognize anthropology as anthropology, however these boundaries might be thought to threaten the very essence of interpretation...I think this will be something that will be continually debated within discussions surrounding the definition of ethnography.
Constructing the Field: Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Contemporary World, edited by Vered Amit

Amit describes the difference between Anthropology and Sociology to be the practice of field work via participant observation. Could one also say that the difference between the two is that Anthropology deals with more “unfamiliar” territory, and Sociology deals with what is relevant at home?
“Yet she insists that the quintessence of what makes ethnographic fieldwork anthropological continues to be a commitment to a process of utter social immersion”.(p.5).
The question of “objectivity” in the field has always been a fascinating one to me. Amit tells us that the norm for the anthropologist in the “field” is to continue with personal obligations in addition to the work... can objectivity still be achieved if the anthropologist relates to the personal demands of his or her life while in the "field"? When objectivity is questioned in the wake of relationships made during the fieldwork itself, Amit suggests that it is possibly not the relationships that are threatening objectivity and that instead we should learn to redefine “total immersion” in the said culture.(p10). “It is the circumstance which defined the method rather than the method defining the circumstance”.(p.11). I like what he says here. I think it is a very important concept to remember when we are attempting to define ethnography as well as attempting to discredit objectivity. Amit says that ethnographers cannot separate themselves from themselves while in the "field". When discussing the question of objectivity, we need to remember this which will subsequently lead us to redefine objectivity in the "field". We cannot expect the impossible and must keep in mind that there is still much to be learned from the results of participant observation and fieldwork without "absolute objectivity".
Very interesting introduction by Vered Amit. Here is one of the most important debates regarding the definition of ethnography as well as the differences between anthropology and sociology: if we define ethnographic fieldwork as participating fully in a culture that is not our own by traveling away from “home”, we are left with having to remember that “home” for many anthropologists is in many different places. Ethnographers typically have a nomadic lifestyle, so how do we define what is away from “home”? “To the extent that the personal, professional and fieldwork involvements of ethnographers are mutually constitutive, the construction of ethnographic fields is not a one-way process of accommodation to the fieldworker’s already existing associations and commitments, for these are also inevitably altered”.(p.9).
“Thus the answer to what happens to anthropology if its practitioners adapt their fieldwork practices to the exigencies of new circumstances is that it would not remain as anthropology if they didn’t”.(p.17). For one to insist that the very essence of anthropology is defined by strict guidelines and closed-minded rules is to forget the very open and curious nature that truly defines anthropology.