(Re)telling a dog story from Newfoundland: Voice, alterity and the art of ethnographic description
Journal Title: Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology - Year 2014, Vol 5, Issue 2
Abstract
This paper addresses the question of how and why we (anthropologists and sociologists) tell stories of real people doing real stuff. It will consider this question by reflecting on three versions of a story that I have carried with me and told in variety of contexts over a couple of decades. The story is not mine but was originally told to me by a man while I was visiting a village on the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. In (re)telling three versions of this story I will be focusing on the problem of “voice” and how the voice of the other is constituted. In answering the question of how and why we tell tales of the field, I will suggest that we do so in part so other people, other voices, come to inhabit our accounts thereby rendering them “ethnographic.” The paper will conclude by arguing that our finely detailed accounts play a crucial role in both constituting the authoritative voice of the anthropologist and troubling this voice with the ghostly whispers of other voices which inhabit our narratives even if, as is the way with ghosts, they can never be wholly conjured into full presence and complete intelligibility.
Authors and Affiliations
John Harries
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP100591
- DOI -
- Views 130
- Downloads 0
Knowledge and beliefs about HIV/AIDS among male and female students of Nigerian universities
HIV/AIDS is one of the biggest problems that has puzzled the medical world, this is because AIDS is life threatening and as of present there is no cure for the disease. The first AIDS case in Nigeria was reported in 1986...
Journal review: Issue number 11-12 of the Journal “Transilvania”, Sibiu, 2013
Journal review: Issue number 11-12 of the Journal “Transilvania”, Sibiu, 2013
Personal documents on the Internet: what’s new and what’s old
In this article some of the main methodological issues that arise in doing research using the Internet are presented. We firstly distinguish two main methodological areas: sociology with Internet and sociology on Interne...
Lucia Popa / Book review: Piotrowski, Piotr. (2012) Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe
Lucia Popa / Book review: Piotrowski, Piotr. (2012) Art and Democracy in Post-Communist Europe. London: Reaktion Books
The relationship between domestic space and gender identity: Some signs of emergence of alternative domestic femininity and masculinity
The premise of this article is that, by introducing domestic space in the analysis of gender identity, one might gain a more nuanced understanding of how gender and power are co-constitutive. The research question is wha...