A workshop was held by E@TM with the intention of exploring matters relating to ethnographic writing. After an instructive talk on the skills required for the writing process, the participants engaged in a series of writing exercises intended to raise issues for subsequent debate. The group was especially concerned with the implicit presence of an audience whilst writing, the external restrictions on the style and media that can be used in ethnographic representations, the relevance and perceived marginalisation of ethnographic texts, and finally, the limitations of the reflexive genre.
Writing is an activity that causes us all a certain amount of difficulty at some point in our careers as students. Whether we suffer from ‘writer’s block’, a lack of confidence in our abilities to set down our thoughts on paper, or the political problematic of representing those whom we write about, writing is there to be grappled with. For these and other reasons, we (E@TM) unanimously decided the topic of our first all day workshop of the academic year should be ethnographic writing.
The writing day was divided into four activities. First, we were treated to a presentation by one of our more experienced writers, Darrell Darrisaw, who took us through the basics of good writing, emphasising the importance of searching out peer review and comment on our work, and reminding us that even the greatest writers never really feel as if their texts are complete. Second, I had been allotted the easy task of asking the group to write for fifteen minutes on ‘What does ethnography mean to you?’. 1 This was greeted with sighs and groans, but was intended to bring out some of the difficulties of writing under duress, and also to pursue a theme - the value of ethnography - that was emerging from E@TM seminars that term. Third, Mari Hirano took us through an instructive exercise, which sought to recreate the writingduring- fieldwork experience. We were asked to watch a video and take notes, as we would do in the field, and then compose a postcard home to our nearest and dearest, and, afterwards either write our first letter back to our supervisor detailing what we had learnt, or draft an article for a local academic journal. Finally, David Herold had asked us all to bring in our ‘Desert Island Texts’to share with each other the qualities that we admired in writing. An interesting outcome of this latter exercise was that those who had brought in examples of ethnographic writing were regretful when they realised that others had brought in works of fiction, and the discussion afterwards partly centred around speculation about what it is that can make ethnographic writing so dull, and other genres much more appealing.
In this report, I am going to focus mainly on the second and third sets of activities, and explore the participants’ reactions to being put ‘on the spot’ as it were. Initially, my remit had been to write up the ‘answers’to ‘What does ethnography mean to you?’, and I had imagined that I would interpret these texts in terms of the fall out from the Writing Culture debate, perhaps even determining how far we feel we have moved on since then. However, since these pieces were anonymous, and I have not been able to return to their authors to discuss their intent and I would prefer to concentrate on the debate that followed the writing. Perhaps, having been there at the point of their writing, I feel reluctant to dissect these texts, because I do not wish to pin them down as if they were dead botanical specimens especially since I know that their authors are alive and well, and most likely to be the primary readers of this journal. 2 However, not wanting all this work to go to waste, I will go ahead and use some extracts from these texts as inspiration, and as illustrations of some of the concerns raised during our debate.
The experience of writing under constraint was a cause for concern amongst the participants. We had been asked to watch a video but had not been told what it was about. All we knew about our hypothetical situation was that we had just arrived in Japan, were still exhausted from our flight, but had received an invitation to a major family celebration from our hosts that we couldn’t refuse. With this scenario in mind, we quietly settled down in front of the video screen to take notes. The activity portrayed in the video was recognised by all of us to be a marriage ceremony, but the difference between writing a postcard home to relay the events, compared to either writing to our supervisor or (for those of our group who, having already completed their fieldwork, were deemed more experienced in these matters) drafting an article for a Japanese academic journal, was quite disconcerting.
The postcards ‘sent’home to family and friends were read out to the class, and these were lively, relaxed and confident pieces, reflecting both the familiarity of the format, and, quite possibly, the perceived lack of specialised knowledge of the readers. In contrast, during the debate afterwards it became clear that the exercises that involved an academic audience were felt to be much more problematic.
In retrospect, this really was not a surprising outcome. The thought of having to write a piece for public consumption shortly after arriving in the field is daunting to say the least, and several of our group said that if they were ever placed in such a situation they would find a polite way to refuse, or at least postpone the piece until they were better informed. However, this exercise did highlight the sometimes unnerving presence of our audience when we are writing. Indeed, the influence of this unseen audience is so strong that we found ourselves inhibited in our writing by the presence of even an imaginary readership. Furthermore, the importance of asking who we are writing for when we compose our ethnographies was clearly something that was in the minds of at least some of our group when they responded to the question ‘What does ethnography mean to you?’.
As one respondant wrote, ‘The "what" of "what does ethnography mean to me?" should be, at the very least, pluralized, to indicate my lack of a "made-to-order" response, and the extent to which my views on its meanings are more fragmented and situationally contingent (depending on context, on audience…) rather than systematic and rigorous.’ A portion of our debate had focused on this audience presence, and some of us admitted to a fear of other people looking at our written work, in the context of the weekly post-fieldwork seminars, for example, where comments on presentations were felt to be sometimes centred around agendas pertinent to the questioner’s own work rather than that of the person presenting the paper. In addition, we were aware of the influence of, and the restrictions imposed by, publishers and examiners on our style – we need a knowledge of stylistic and academic expectations before we even begin to write.
These external restrictions imposed on the way we present our research findings do seem to be a source of frustration. Many members of the group seemed to be conscious of a creative impulse: ‘Ethnographies are literary exercises in the creation of reflexive "science". They are scientific account in the realm of artistic expression.’, and, ‘Thinking and writing about fieldwork is a creative act, and necessarily involves a subjective engagement with "objective" detail.’ Are two statements which suggest this. Unfortunately this latent potential appears to be blocked by institutional demands, and there possibly needs to be greater tolerance, perhaps even encouragement, of those individuals who see ethnography taking a wider range of literary forms: ‘Ethnography for me could take different forms from written account to visual representation like video or multimedia and probably not strictly limited to the field of anthropology’. It is currently not possible to submit a PhD thesis solely in the form of a film, video, or multimedia production; these media are considered only as supplementary forms to a written thesis, a disheartening obstacle to those who wish to meet their completion dates.
The question of potential readerships was also raised during the workshop. As one member of our group wrote, ‘How many of us enjoy reading ethnographic monographs? Not many I suspect. I tend to read around my areas of interest: history, psychology, geography, philosophy etc. Why is anthropology so marginalised as a discipline? Just look at publishers’marketing strategies. Why aren’t anthropological ‘tomes’ published by any of the popular press? They publish psychology, history, hard science. Who are we writing for? For all our concern with the politics of writing and representation, we don’t seem all that successful at getting our message across.’
This concern returns us to our presentation of ‘Desert Island Texts’ – why was it that ethnographic monographs were thought by many to be at the bottom of the heap when it comes to literary criteria? It is possible that institutional discouragement of more creative urges is one reason, but this is a restriction that applies to the fields of history, psychology, geography and philosophy as well, and yet the author of the above citation found texts in these fields more interesting. This disaffection with the ethnographic monograph may be in part symptomatic of ‘the grass being greener on the other side of the fence’, especially at a moment of intensive engagement with one’s own discipline – part of a response to the experience of being a PhD student perhaps. But this is only speculation on my part.
I can, however, draw attention to the critical response to the reflexive turn that some of the group pointed to in their writing. ‘I think we have become selfreflexive to the point of becoming anallyretentive as a discipline. Of all disciplines, anthropology seems to have a great deal to offer. Strangely though, it seems only to engage with itself’. The question, ‘ Is traditional-type ethnography dead? Or are we now so reflective that we return to our armchairs?’ is a further instance of this point of view. This seemed to be a specific deterrent to some people on reading the ethnographic genre that includes those more personal musings of the author as part of its remit. Not all of the group can have shared this viewpoint however. For instance the person who wrote that ‘Ethnographies are a therapeutic exorcism of our inner demons’ presumably saw value in this kind of work.
It seems therefore that one outcome of our workshop was, that whilst we recognise our own limitations and fears regarding the process of writing, a call for further innovation in the ethnographic genre. Part of our reluctance to put pen to paper (or more likely, sit and type at the keyboard) results from the boundaries that have been drawn around the academic practice of ethnography. Concerns regarding the limitations imposed by an institutional readership seem to be linked to concerns about the appeal of anthropology to a broader audience. Would this be solved if we were ‘let loose’ with the imaginative use of a range of media, or is the lack of appeal perhaps due to the subject matter that we are presenting? Maybe our writings do not resonate with issues that are important to others outside anthropology (or sometimes even within). The definitions of what constitute ethnographic writing have been contested in the past, and yet there is still no satisfaction with what has been achieved since.
Notes:1 The results of this exercise were used in a later seminar, ‘What is the Use of Ethnography?’, Department of Anthropology, SOAS, 17th January 2000, during which participants were asked to respond to quotations taken from these pieces. back
2 An early lesson perhaps, in writing ethnography. back
Beckie Marsland is a student at SOAS. She is currently preparing for fieldwork in Tanzania