HYE-WONHYE
(Burn, you do not burn)
Some traditional priests were noted for their fire dancing abilities without burning their feet. In the same way, other individuals are able to endure and overcome all forms of difficulties. This symbol signifies the tendency to withstand pain and other hardships. This is a symbol of imperishability and endurance.

ETHNOGRAPHY, ETHNOLOGY

"What does the ethnographer do --- he writes"
(Clifford Geertz)

Has so much changed in anthropological thinking since Geertz wrote these words in 1973? Maybe it has. If I were pressed to answer the question: "What does the ethnographer do? I’d say: "She watches; she listens."

Geertz taught a generation of ethnographers that cultural analysis is for "guessing at meanings, assessing the guesses, and drawing explanatory conclusions from the better guesses, not discovering the Continent of Meaning and mapping out its bodiless landscape." He defined ethnographic description as interpretive of the flow of social discourse and he noted that it is an attempt to rescue the "said" of a discourse from "perishing occasions" and to "fix it in perusable terms." Clifford Geertz taught the value of "microscopic, thick" description. He argued that "small facts speak to large issues, winks to epistemology, or sheep raids to revolution, because they are made to," but in the "symbolic anthroplogy" of Geertz, one still hears the voice of the ethnographer above all other voices. The ethnographer writes.

Ethnography in its postmodernist mood encompasses the "thick description’ of Geertz. Poetic imagery, metaphor, fictional narrative and evocative prose are postmodernist additions that are easily included in a definition of ethnography as "writing." But, as ethnographers, we need to learn to "shut up and listen." To strengthen the sound of the voices from inside the culture, we need to diminish the autobiographical ethnographic claim to "being there, telling our story." Visual anthropology might be one way to include the other voices while still continuing to say: "I was here (too)." For this reason, we will focus on this subfield of anthropology and its potential to facilitate partnerships with informants. Maybe watching closely will make us better listeners.

Text: Joanne Munroe, WCC IDS Instructor

Grand Bassam,Cote d'Ivoire, Traditional Hunter photo: Kathryn Roe, WCC Art Instructor

© WCC African Study Project