Critical Review #2: Clifford 1988

The second half of this reading deals primarily about the difficulties in translating ethnographic fieldwork into writing. Experiences in the field, especially dialogue with representatives of the culture being studied, have to be "translated" into "narratives, meaningful occurrences, or examples" (39), which alters the material from being said by one to being said by the culture. Additionally, this tends to hide the fact that these conversations with individuals are as important, if not more, as observations in understanding a culture. Furthermore, it is tedious to separate different people's opinions and contributions to the ethnographer's view--as Clifford writes, an "ethnography composed entirely of quotations...[is] seldom attempted" (47), and even works with multiple authors, such as Birds of My Kalam Country still cannot completely capture this concept. Finally, the diverse audience for modern ethnography compounds this issue: now there will be multiple interpretations of each ethnographic writing.

Discussion questions: Should the ethnographer seek to interpret a culture, or simply present his/her observations and leave the interpretation to the reader? Also, because different audiences will interpret the ethnographer's writings differently because of different cultural backgrounds, who should the ethnographer write for: the culture being studied, the ethnographer's "home" culture, or a third "outside" observer? Does this depend on the ethnographer's goals?