In part, Danny Butt wrote: the bottom line is that Don comes and
talks to us about Ghanaians without them necessarily being present.
Ed responds: Yes, ethnographers often (re)represent (something about) their subjects, to others, outside of the presence of those subjects. But gee . . . we could pretty much say that about reports of any or all social scientific research data. The subjects aren't there; their data is used to represent them. Strikes me that the key issue/question here is about what one is studying. If one is studying the meanings-in-use-for-subjects, then (in my view) ethnographic methods are going to do a better job at representing (to others) those meanings in use than are other (perhaps more quantitative) techniques that overlay received wisdom and concepts on the observed behaviors. And in the end, being "true" to actual meanings-in-use seems to me to be MORE, not less, true to the native culture than are re-representations of imposed constructs. I fully agree in the need for LOTS of professional protection for subjects . . . I'm strong with the desire that subjects should benefit as much (or more) from the research than does either the researcher or the audience. On Feb 17, 2004, at 1:46 PM, Danny Butt wrote:
But the bottom line for me is that if the goal is to improve the world, and not just ourselves, we need to find a way of negotiating between the needs and desires of those under study and our own desires for knowledge - and the power imbalances between these. In some cases there's alignment between those two desires, which makes things easier - both 'me' and the 'others/subjects' are working toward explicitly the same thing. Like Don, there are also situations where I think the 'others' are wrong, but I'd add an important consideration to the idea that we can just "tell each other" about the wrongness: the bottom line is that Don comes and talks to us about Ghanaians without them necessarily being present. The effects of the circulation of this knowledge in western academia (and related appendages e.g. into development policy), away from explicit dialogue with the research subjects, can have a far greater impact on the subjects' community than their dialogue without us present can have on us. No first world ethnographer ever lost their job for their informants not being happy with how they are represented, but there are plenty of examples of such impacts (and worse) happening in researched communities due to research publications (e.g. in this part of the world, Cook's mapping practices).
Edward Lee Lamoureux, Ph. D. Director, Multimedia Program and New Media Center Associate Professor, Speech Communication 1501 W. Bradley Bradley University Peoria IL 61625 309-677-2378