Clifford Geertz |
The interpretation of cultures |
| New York: Basic Books. 1973. |
Perhaps my favorite statement about the "why?" of anthropology--though not to be taken literally!
The vocation of anthropology is not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others, guarding other sheep in other valleys, have given, and thus to include them in the consultable record of what man has said. (p. 30)
more specifically:
"The ethnographer 'inscribes' social discourse; he writes it down. In so doing, he turns it from a passing event, which exists only in its own moment of occurence, into an account, which esists in its inscriptions and can be reconsulted." (p. 19)
when is the "moment of occurence"? what is "social discourse"? does it matter if, as this is developed here:
what we inscribe ... is not raw social discourse, to which, because ... we are not actors, we do not have direct access, but only that small part of it which our informants can lead us into understanding (p. 20)
? so we are to rely on informants' accounts from which we will build our own accounts. But, is it the case that informants, even at the moment of occurence have access to the "raw social discourse" (can they, in the moment, distinguish a wink from a twitch?)? If not, then the distinction informant/anthropologist does not hold: all our accounts, including those we improvise in the moment are more proposals for accounts, than completed acts. This leaves us with wondering how (proposals for) accounts at built in the various possible time frames--from the seconds after a statement to the months or years typical of other forms of accounts (ethnographies, novels, histories, etc.)