Re: Individual and Community Analyses

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Thu, 13 Nov 1997 10:40:10 -0800

At 7:48 AM 11/13/97, Scott Forbes Oates wrote:
>-- Deborah, et al:
>
>Re: Renato Rosaldo,
>Culture andTruth: A Remaking of Social Analysis,
>Rosaldo makes the point that narrative structures are not universal--and
>that Western narratives are Aristotean in terms of time and space being
>linear. One point is that the participant observer (cultural analyst)
>should attend to the participants narrative structure--he uses the concepts
>of tempo and improvisation--and he illustrate with an example of Ilongot and
>Balinese narratives being distorted by Aristotelean time/space structures.
>

An interesting response to this may be in Erica McWilliam's (1994) "In
Broken Images..." - her 'methodology' is divided in several analytical and
narrative-based approaches;

but significantly, what McWIlliam's does is rely on the emtaphors used by
the people she is writing about to help her understand their meanings...
rather than RE-write what people have said, she relies on their uses of
language to contruct a
"tale"...

it is not a flawless approach by any means; however, the direction of the
interpretation shifts when the writer is relying on the metaphors and
language-practices of 'others' to construct an interpretation of what
people 'mean'...

diane

"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right."
Ani Difranco
*********************************
diane celia hodges
faculty of education
university of british columbia
vancouver, bc canada
tel: (604)-253-4807
email: dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca