Why Writing Matters
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102 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 23, Number 1 the past lies in the way the creators are remembered in the present" (p. 185), Graham makes the case that myth is neither static nor homogeneous. People are able to recontextualize and adapt their mythic accounts to new circumstances, so story details may change with repeated tellings. But "so long as Xavante continue to tell the tales that link them to the past and to the celebrated first creators, they expressively recreate the continuity of this uniquely Xavante cultural practice. And in their agent-centered myth tellings, narrators model a pattern of action in the world ... that Xavante have transported into their dealings with the outside world" and their "determination to continue as Xavante forever" (p. 224), which Warodi embodied so well. Warodi's performances marked him as both a special individual and an unselfish member of the community. Some of his dream-nar- rative performance was timed to offset social turmoil (p. 134). It was clearly his "gift to future generations" (p. 63). Chapter 7 gives a detailed account of his performance. An epilogue shows how, through an unexpected series of dramatic events, "Warodi's voice continues to resound in the realm of the living" (p. 236). There is also an appendix by T. M. Scruggs on Xavante music. I recommend playing the notes, acting out other parts of the book, and then passing it on to another willing participant. Warodi would be proud. File the experience under the heading of participatory ethnographic reading. Graham has gone to great lengths to make such performances possible—and enjoyably edifying. Why Writing Matters Norman Denzin. Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Cen- tury. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage Publications, 1997. xxii + 289 pp. KATHLEEN STEWART Department of Anthropology University of Texas Austin, TX 78712-1086 This is an excellent book for teaching about the morass of contemporary battles over ethnographic theory and writing. It gives cogent, fascinating histories of ethnographic practices including such recent forms as new journalism, perfor- mative writing, the postmodern detective novel, and "standpoint" writing, which performs feminist and race critiques in situated autobiographical experi- ments. Ethnography in its shifting forms is linked to the history of capitalism and the state, modernism and postmodernism, the dynamics of public and private spheres, mass-mediated epistemologies, and communicative and political ethics. Denzin also offers the best, most detailed, and clearest critique of conservative attacks on experimental writing I have seen. Finally, this book is extraordinary in its project—to link poststructuralist theory with those elements of humanism that seek moral and ethical judgment, public accountability, and the grounding of theory in experience. Denzin calls for an evocative rather than a representational epistemology—one that performs rather than represents the world. He critiques visualism and calls for a multiperspective, multisensual, visceral, more fully grounded writing that creates a space for the reader to literally "figure out" his or her views and reactions. He explicates the meaning and necessity of gaps, repetitions, shifts, backtracking and elision, and poetics. He calls for the displacement and deferral of textual truth and certainty in favor of reflexive critique; yet he applauds a writing in which the writer is motivated by a search for a moral truth rather than
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Transcript of Why Writing Matters
102 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 23, Number 1
the past lies in the way the creators are remembered in the present" (p. 185),Graham makes the case that myth is neither static nor homogeneous. People areable to recontextualize and adapt their mythic accounts to new circumstances, sostory details may change with repeated tellings. But "so long as Xavante continueto tell the tales that link them to the past and to the celebrated first creators, theyexpressively recreate the continuity of this uniquely Xavante cultural practice.And in their agent-centered myth tellings, narrators model a pattern of action inthe world . . . that Xavante have transported into their dealings with the outsideworld" and their "determination to continue as Xavante forever" (p. 224), whichWarodi embodied so well. Warodi's performances marked him as both a specialindividual and an unselfish member of the community. Some of his dream-nar-rative performance was timed to offset social turmoil (p. 134). It was clearly his"gift to future generations" (p. 63). Chapter 7 gives a detailed account of hisperformance.
An epilogue shows how, through an unexpected series of dramatic events,"Warodi's voice continues to resound in the realm of the living" (p. 236). Thereis also an appendix by T. M. Scruggs on Xavante music. I recommend playingthe notes, acting out other parts of the book, and then passing it on to anotherwilling participant. Warodi would be proud. File the experience under theheading of participatory ethnographic reading. Graham has gone to great lengthsto make such performances possible—and enjoyably edifying.
Why Writing Matters
Norman Denzin. Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Cen-tury. Thousand Oaks, CA and London: Sage Publications, 1997. xxii + 289 pp.
KATHLEEN STEWARTDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of TexasAustin, TX 78712-1086
This is an excellent book for teaching about the morass of contemporary battlesover ethnographic theory and writing. It gives cogent, fascinating histories ofethnographic practices including such recent forms as new journalism, perfor-mative writing, the postmodern detective novel, and "standpoint" writing,which performs feminist and race critiques in situated autobiographical experi-ments. Ethnography in its shifting forms is linked to the history of capitalism andthe state, modernism and postmodernism, the dynamics of public and privatespheres, mass-mediated epistemologies, and communicative and political ethics.Denzin also offers the best, most detailed, and clearest critique of conservativeattacks on experimental writing I have seen.
Finally, this book is extraordinary in its project—to link poststructuralisttheory with those elements of humanism that seek moral and ethical judgment,public accountability, and the grounding of theory in experience.
Denzin calls for an evocative rather than a representational epistemology—onethat performs rather than represents the world. He critiques visualism and callsfor a multiperspective, multisensual, visceral, more fully grounded writing thatcreates a space for the reader to literally "figure out" his or her views andreactions. He explicates the meaning and necessity of gaps, repetitions, shifts,backtracking and elision, and poetics. He calls for the displacement and deferralof textual truth and certainty in favor of reflexive critique; yet he applauds awriting in which the writer is motivated by a search for a moral truth rather than
Book Reviews 103
scientific or aesthetic norms of accountability. He wants a writing capable ofawakening moral sensibilities and moving people to action. He outlines a radicaldemocratic project for ethnography—one that aims at human transformations inthe public sphere and depends on a critical poststructuralism that stressesdialogic subjectivity, emotionality, and other antifoundational criteria.
Here is a theory that is fully informed by Derrida and Foucault, Marx, feministand subaltern critiques, and mass-media studies, yet calls for a writing arisingout of epochal moments in people's lives. It rejects naturalism—the attempt toaccurately reproduce the real, external world of objects and to accurately mapand represent that world—in favor of performance texts that make experienceconcrete and create spaces where texts, performers, performances, and audiencescome together. Drawing on broad and diverse works, including those of Brecht,Artaud, Bakhtin, Gloria Anzaldua, Trinh Min-Ha, the "new journalists" (TrumanCapote, JoanDidion, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, Norman Mailer), and ethnographicwriters and theorists in sociology, communication studies, and anthropology,Denzin outlines a sophisticated, theoretically informed call to return to thesubject, the real, and the search for moral truths. This return may be realizedthrough complex textual experiments that draw the texting of everyday life intoa dialogue with academic texts and perform a critique of dominant modernistmodels of objectivity, rationality, and the universal subject. Denzin's agenda isto create a space in which to retell the stories that the social sciences, as we haveknown them, have reduced to fiction or aestheticized, marginalized, stigmatized,and paternalized. These are stories of experience that can resonate with the samedepth and complexity as that of experience itself. And there is an ethical andpolitical reason to tell them, or perform them, within the epistemology of apostpragmatist social criticism. Truth is fragile; it is dialogic experience lodgedin the moment that connects the reader to the text as a co-producer and in themoment that connects the text to the world through a dense web of intertextual-ity. We should tell it.
An Amazonian Anthropology of the Senses
Pei-Lin Yu. Hungry Lightning: Notes of a Woman Anthropologist in Venezuela.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. xiii + 238 pp.
BETH A. CONKLINVanderbilt UniversityDepartment of Anthropology, Box 6050-BNashville, TN 37235
A recent trend in ethnographic writing follows the call by Paul Stoller and othersfor a more sensual anthropology—for writings that capture the feel (and soundand smell and taste) of the places, people, and events we write about. Pei-LinYu's Hungry Lightning responds to that call with one of the most vivid accountsever written about fieldwork in an indigenous community.
Hungry Lightning is the tale of Yu's 18 months among the Pume (Yaruro)Indians who live in the Venezuelan savanna near the Colombian border. In1992-93, she was research assistant on a project to collect ethnographic data thatcould be used to interpret archaeological sites, but her book is not about scientificfindings, nor is it a systematic analysis of Pume" society. Rather, it is a chron-icle—told entirely through journal entries and Yu's own sketches—of her experi-ences getting to know the Pume" and the rhythms and dramas of their daily lives.
