In his review of Edward Said's Orientalism, James Clifford asks,
Said's answer to Clifford's first question is unequivocal: "It is notthe thesis of this book to suggest that there is such a thing as a real or trueOrient."[2] Said's statement seems paradoxical since he devotes over 300pages to an assault on inauthentic portrayals of the Orient. However, Saidpoints out that "the Orient" is itself a constituted entity."[3]Since "the Orient" does not exist except as a fabricated concept, thequestion of authenticity or inauthenticity is irrelevant.
Said believes his function as a critic is to struggle against the proceduresof representation itself:
Said's study of Orientalism is negative in two respects. First, he claimsthat representations cannot be avoided, even when truths are conveyed. Second,he illustrates the misuse of various representational strategies, but he neversuggests a correct approach to the problem of representation. Said providesreaders with critical tools for detecting suspect representations, but heprovides no guidance for authors who may wish to confront the problem ofrepresentation. Clifford asks where criticism is to begin with the struggleagainst the procedures of representation, but the more pertinent question shouldbe where does the author begin in the struggle against the procedures ofrepresentation.
Authors write texts in order to accomplish certain purposes. A purpose of thepoet or novelist is creative self-expression. For the creative writer,representation is the vehicle for expression; the creative writer consciouslychooses representations as representations. The writer of nonfiction,however, typically focuses on the substance of what she wishes to communicate,and often fails to realize that she uses representations when communicating herideas. Some writers of nonfiction attempt to eliminate all vestiges ofexpressiveness or rhetoric from their texts, but this attempt must fail:
"[R]hetoric ... is the characteristic manner by which a text's languageand organization convinces its readers of the truth, or at least of thecredibility of its claims."[6] The nonfiction writer focuses on the need toconvince or persuade her reader, and is concerned with rhetorical strategiesonly insofar as they meet this need. The creative writer and nonfiction writerboth use rhetoric, but, generally, the creative writer uses rhetoric as both ameans and an end in itself, while the nonfiction writer tends to view rhetoricsolely as a means to an end.
Writers of nonfiction may begin to approach the problem of representation bybecoming aware of their use of rhetoric in representation. Some of Said'sdetractors have declared that Said's point concerning the inevitability ofrepresentation is trivial. However, Said's observation is far from trivial ifwriters incorporate that observation into their texts. All writers must becomeaware of the constructed nature of their texts; in this sense all texts arefictions. The word "fiction" comes from the Latin word fingerewhich means "to form".
Ethnography, the anthropological description of technologically"primitive" societies (although contemporary ethnographies are nolonger limited to the study of primitive societies), is a paradigm ofrepresentation of "the other". During the past several decadesanthropologists have been attempting to deal with the problem of representationof other cultures, and the remainder of this essay will examine some of thesolutions proposed by theorists and practitioners of ethnography.
Gregory Bateson's Naven is an example of the self-conscious use ofrhetoric. He begins by presenting the naven ritual as a puzzle. Bateson thendescribes other components of Iatmul culture as he recreates (represents) thedevelopment of his interpretation. Bateson draws the reader's attention tolanguage, style and rhetoric throughout. In an epilogue, Bateson admits that hispurpose was not so much to describe Iatmul culture, "but to suggest methodsof thinking about anthropological problems."[7] Nevertheless, Batesonrepresents another culture and simultaneously makes explicit his methodsof representation.
While the ethnographer should approach her text with an awareness of itsfictional nature, and should self-consciously adopt some of the rhetorical andliterary techniques ordinarily associated with creative writing, e.g., genre,narrative, and metaphor, she must avoid carrying the parallels between the twoforms of writing too far. For example, an omniscient or totalizing perspectivemay be appropriate for the creative writer communicating her personal vision,but not for the writer describing another culture.
In order to establish anthropology on a scientific foundation, earlyethnographers adopted a realistic style derived from natural science writing.Ethnographic realism is defined as "a mode of writing that seeks to representthe reality of a whole world or form of life."[8] (Emphasis added).According to Marcus and Cushman, "what gives the ethnographer authority andthe text a pervasive sense of concrete reality is the writer's claim torepresent a world as only one who has known it first-hand can."[9] As JamesClifford puts it, the goal of ethnographic realism is to give the reader a senseof "you are there, because I was there."[10] Note the tenses used inClifford's statement: the ethnographer organizes his past experiences in orderto give the reader the illusion of an experience in the present.
Marcus and Cushman identify nine characteristics of ethnographic realism: (i)a totalizing description of another culture; (ii) an omniscient, unintrusivenarrator; (iii) substitution of composite creations for individuals; (iv)references to fieldwork only to the extent necessary to establish the actualpresence of the ethnographer; (v) focus on everyday life situations; (vi)dogmatic claim that the native point of view is being represented; (vii)generalizations are favored over detailing of particular facts; (viii) use ofjargon; (ix) conceptual abstractions which bypass attention to the context ofnative language.[11]
The result of the foregoing characteristics is a radical separation betweenthe fieldwork experience and the ethnography which is the product of thefieldwork. The attempt to maintain realism actually results in an absoluterepresentation. Ethnographic realism produces a mimesis and synthesis of thefieldworker's experience; the text is an imitation of an experience.
Recent experiments in ethnography have attempted to deal directly with theelements of ethnographic realism which paradoxically falsify and distort othercultures. In one experiment the fieldworker and his experience becomes the focusof the text. Jean-Paul Dumont's The Headman and I: Ambiguity and Ambivalencein the Fieldworking Experience is an example of the self-reflexive approach.
Dumont sees fieldwork as a dialectical experience: native culture (thesis)and anthropologist (antithesis) interact and both are changed in the process(synthesis). This is not Marxist dialectics strictly speaking, because thenative culture and anthropologist, although changed, remain separate. Instead,Dumont's observations suggest that fieldwork is an illustration of theHeisenberg Uncertainty Principle: an investigator, through the very process ofconducting an experiment, alters the conditions which he examines and is himselfchanged. Dumont believes intersubjectivity resolves the dilemma of objectivismversus subjectivism:
The fieldworker must not only be aware of intersubjectivity, he must alsomake it an explicit component of the ethnography.
Dumont is alert to the psychological aspects of fieldwork. He is informallyadopted as the "brother" of the headman of the tribe he studies. Astime passes, Dumont recognizes the phenomenon of transference in which he reactsto the headman just as he would with an actual sibling. Dumont realizestransference will interfere with his interpretation of Panare culture, butrather than attempt to identify and exclude the impact of the transference,which is impossible, he lets the reader know of his tainted perspective. It thenbecomes the reader's responsibility to evaluate the effects of the transference.
Dumont is fully aware that his task as an ethnographer is analogous totranslation. While the translator of a text from one language to another seeksto remain transparent, if the cultural translator is invisible, the reader ofhis text cannot detect the crucial factors which effect the translation, i.e.,the cultural, institutional and political biases of the translator. Dumontcompares the process of cultural translation to a Rorschach test. Dumont alsorecognizes the impossibility of some translations. For example, when he attemptsto describe the significance of a victory in the World Series, he can only say"They have killed a lot of game and now they are going to drink a lot ofbeer."[13] Though Dumont does not explicitly say so, he implies thattranslation in the reverse direction is equally problematic. In any event,Dumont makes the problems of translation and his role in translation explicit.
Throughout his ethnography, Dumont takers great pains to emphasize thecontingent, incomplete, emerging nature of the knowledge he acquires. Heexplicitly acknowledges his limitations and fallibility. Interpretation andspeculation are clearly signaled. Dumont does not resort to compositecharacters, and he successfully portrays members of the Panare village understudy as individuals. Furthermore, Dumont uses particularized statements such as"I saw certain Panare do X" rather than more generalized statementssuch as "the Panare do X."
The problem of representation cannot be avoided altogether, but Dumontsuggests that the explicit handling of representation gives the reader theopportunity to detect the truth which may be present in his representation.Although Dumont violates each principle of classical ethnographic realismidentified by Marcus and Cushman, his work is more realistic since it rejoinsthe fieldwork experience (encounter with "the other") and the textcreated as a result of that experience (representation of "theother").
The Headman and I was published two years after an earlier book byDumont based on the same fieldwork experience. The earlier ethnography is morestraightforward and less self-reflective than The Headman and I, andperhaps a combination of the two books could achieve a further improvement inthe handling of representation. At times The Headman and I seemed overlyconfessional, and would probably be more meaningful if the reader was given moreconcrete information about Panare culture.
Texts utilizing the conventions of ethnographic realism attempt to establishauthorial authority. Monologue is the dominant form of such ethnographies.Marjorie Shostak's Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman[14],however, is presented in the form of a dialogue. The conditions of Shostak'sfieldwork are described in an introduction and an epilogue. The main portion ofthe book consists of thematically organized chapters which begin with Shostak'sbrief description and interpretation of !Kung culture, followed by Nisa'scommentary on the chapter theme. Although the ratio of material provided by Nisato that provided by Shostak is 2:1, Shostak is listed as the sole author;Shostak, of course, selected, edited and organized Nisa's statements. Eventhough the form of the text is a dialogue, Shostak's ultimate control over thetext makes it a monologue. The monological aspect is repeated within the textitself: there is no true discourse between Shostak's and Nisa's portions of thetext, only alternating monologues.
However, Shostak's text does move away from the central position of theethnographer (implicit in ethnographic realism and explicit in Dumont), andbrings the importance of native informants to the foreground. "Theother" is given the opportunity, albeit limited, to represent herself inShostak's text. Shostak's text is also significant because it attempts toincorporate dialogue as a structural feature. As noted above, this attempt isnot entirely successful; however, Shostak demonstrates the potential usefulnessof multiple voices to disperse authorship.
The strategies for dealing with the problem of representation discussed thusfar involve making those strategies explicit. Stephen A. Tyler, however,proposes an entirely different definition of ethnography which causes theproblem of representation to vanish altogether:
A post-modern ethnography is a cooperatively evolved text consisting of fragments of discourse intended to evoke in the minds of both reader and writer an emergent fantasy of a possible world of commonsense reality, and thus to provoke an aesthetic integration that will have a therapeutic effect.[15]
Tyler's definition emphasizes the dialogical nature of ethnography, but herethe discourse is between reader and writer rather than between the writer andthe culture he studies. Tyler maintains that the experience which matters is notthe fieldwork but the writing of the ethnography; the ethnographer does notattempt to represent another culture to the reader, but rather to evoke in thereader a recollection of his own culture. Ethnography is a way to make thefamiliar unfamiliar and then familiar again.
Tyler's essay, however fascinating, is somewhat inconsistent: although heclaims that all ethnographies are post-modern in effect, he also states that thepost-modern ethnography has not yet been written and may not even be possible!However, he adds,
The point anyway is not how to create a post-modern ethnography or what form it ought to take. The point is that it might take any form but never be completely realized. Every attempt will always be incomplete, insufficient, lacking in some way, but this is not a defect since it is the means that enables transcendence. Transcendence comes from imperfection not from perfection.[16]
Furthermore, Tyler acknowledges that an author's intention and a reader'sinterpretation often diverge. While a reader sympathetic to post-modern thinkingmight see an evocation, a reader with Said's sensitivities might see arepresentation. According to Tyler's theory, neither reader would be wrong.
Tyler's essay is important for its emphasis on discourse analysis, theethical character of ethnography, and the relationship between writer, text andreader. But the problem of representation cannot simply be defined away. Said isnot interested in a "real or true Orient" because he denies that"the Orient" exists in the first place. Nevertheless, anthropologistsand other social scientists want to produce representations of "theother" which are as authentic as possible because "the other,"i.e., not-self, does exist unless one is a radical solipsist.
According to Aristotle, "All men by nature desire to know." Theapplicability of Aristotle's observation to all humans is questionable, but hedoes identify the distinguishing characteristic of scholars. Francis Baconobserved that "Knowledge is power." The thesis Said defends in Orientalism,the conjunction of Aristotle's and Bacon's propositions, seems to be "Allmen by nature desire to know in order to acquire power." I do not concurwith this thesis: although the results of scholarship certainly can be used tofacilitate domination, I do not believe domination of others is the objective ofscholarship. If indeed power and domination have a necessary relationship toknowledge, then I suggest it is simply a matter of the knower having power overwhat is known.
Obviously, power/knowledge can exert external effects, but the use ofpower/knowledge then raises issues of ethics, and the potential consequences ofits use must be considered. Although a scholar has limited ability to controlthe use by others of the knowledge she produces, she must never forget herresponsibilities.
The scholar's first responsibility, then, is to be aware that knowledge, likeaction, has consequences. When other humans are the subject of knowledge, shemust pay attention to the power relations involved. The scholar must alwaysstruggle against the procedures of representation, even while recognizing thatthe problem of representation can never be overcome completely.
This essay has considered some strategies which can be brought to bear onthis struggle. First, the role of rhetoric in all forms of writing must beacknowledged and handled in an explicit manner. Second, the tactics ofethnographic realism must be avoided, and the role of the scholar in theprocedures of the investigation must be emphasized. Third, polyphony ordispersed authorship should be utilized so that the objects of study may speakfor themselves to the greatest extent possible. Plato's dialogues may be auseful model here: through Platonic dialectic, various voices can explore andchallenge the representational strategies of other voices.
Finally, the reader, too, must become involved in the struggle against theprocedures of representation. The author is only a mediator between the readerand the object of knowledge, and responsibilities arising from the use ofknowledge thus pass to the reader. The model of Platonic dialectic suggestedabove emphasizes the role of the reader since the reader must actively engagethe text and construct knowledge out of the information provided by the variousvoices. Reading can no longer be a passive activity.
NOTES
1 Clifford, James, review of Orientalism, Historyand Theory, 19:204-223 (1980), p. 208.
2 Said, Edward I., Orientalism. New York: Vintage(1979), p. 322.
3 Ibid., p. 322.
4 Ibid., p. 272.
5 Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays.Princeton: Princeton University Press (1957), p. 331.
6 Marcus, George E., Rhetoric and the Ethnographic Genre inAnthropological Research, Current Anthropology 21: 507-10 (1980), p. 508.
7 Bateson, Gregory, Naven, 2d ed. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press (1958), p. 260.
8 Marcus, George E. and Dick Cushman, Ethnographies asTexts, Annual Review of Anthropology 11:25-69 (1982), p. 29.
9 Ibid., p. 29.
10 Clifford, James, On Ethnographic Authority, Representations1(2):118-146 (1983), p. 118.
11 Marcus and Cushman, pp.31-36.
12 Dumont, Jean-Paul, The Headman and I: Ambiguity andAmbivalence in the Fieldworking Experience. Austin: University of TexasPress (1978), pp. 60-61.
13 Ibid., p. 109.
14 Shostak, Marjorie, Nisa: The Life and Words of a!Kung Woman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (1981).
15 Tyler, Stephen A., Post-Modern Ethnography: FromDocument of the Occult to Occult Document, p. 125. In Writing Culture: ThePoetics and Politics of Ethnography, James Cliford and George E. Marcus(eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press (1986).
16 Ibid., p. 136.