Download Reflexivity does not belong to an individual or cultural vacuum but to

Reflexivity and Anthropological
Knowledge
What is reflexivity?
Reflexivity and cultural phenomena:
turn to subjectivity
• Changes in the sciences: Kuhn (the structure of
Scientific Revolution, 1962).
• ---Geertz’s notion of Blurred Genres, 1980
• --exegesis; critical interpretation
• Arts and Social Sciences: autobiographies as an
avenue for self-expression(Mead)
• Technique of inquiry (Oscar Lewis, Anthrop of
Poverty)
• In the arts: painting, theatre, etc.
Turn to subjectivity in New
Journalism
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Resembles to ethnography
Naïve concept of reality
Value free
“The world is as it appears to be”
Author as a vehicle to transmit reality
Reflexivity and Anthropology
• to examine a field problem (machismo, gender
relations, etc)
• to examine anthropology itself (critique of our
methods, history, theories)
• as a tool for gathering data (technique of inquiry)
• to publicly examine the anthropologist's response
to the field situation (by exposing the
methodology)
The paradox/dilemma within
anthropology
• the more the anthrop attempts to fulfill his
scientific obligation to report on methods,
the more he must acknowledge his own
behaviour and the persona as a data
• Statements on the method them appear to be
more personal, subjective, biased,
Anthropologists cope with the
dilemma by:
• Trying to become scientific (less
subjective)
• Hiding on academic slogans
List of four factors for the emergence of
reflexivity in Anthropology (Nash and
Wintrob, 1972)
• increase personal involvement of
ethnographers with their subjects
• the democratization of anthropology
(more people becoming anthrop, other
classes, other cultures)
• multiple fields studies of the same culture
• independence of native peoples