[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: [Sed-l] "Should anthropology break up withethnography?"

[Greg Thompson]

Yes, Larry, I hear you.
But I think the question that Joanna Cook is presenting is something like
this (to blend these different languagings):
How can you write humaningly?
Is that entirely impossible? Is ethnography cursed with non-attentionality
and un-becomingness? (the words get a bit, well, un-becoming...).

And the mention of shamanic move was meant as a compliment. I think it is
also a complement to your "hearing the melody of the concept **mitsein**
flowing [con]currently within this stream of thought, this way of
travelling." Isn't that precisely what a good shaman does?

-greg

On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 6:38 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg, Mike,
>
>
>
> On page 389 Tim explores the difference between **intersubjectivity** and
> his meaning for the term **correspondence** He defines correspondence as
> “launched in the current of real time, participant observation couples the
> forward movements of one’s own perception and action with the movements of
> others, much as melodic lines are coupled in musical counterpoint. For this
> coupling of movements that, as they proceed, continually  answer to each
> other. Tim emphasizes **correspondence** has nothing to do with *
> *representation** or **description**.
>
>
>
> Tim makes a fascinating distinction about living **attentionally** in
> contrast to **intentionally** with others.
>
> Tim that when living **attentionally** gets cast within the frame of
> ethnography, correspondence **re-appears** in the guise of *
> *inter/subjectivity**.  And intersubjectivity [following Husserl] is
> about living with others NOT attentionally, but intentionally.
>
>
>
> Correspondence [as Tim means this term] is **not** a relation **between**
> one subject and other subjects [as the prefix **inter** indicates] but is
> a relation that **carries on** or **unfolds** along [con]current paths.
> Being within the current **with** others.
>
> Also, in this way of attentionally carrying on are not **already thrown**
> as the suffix **ject** implies but reside within the throwing.
>
> They are not subjects, or objects, or hybrid subject/objects. They are
> verbs. All beings are in this relation and the human way is **humaning**
> Indeed humans are not actually beings at all but are **becomings** as
> humaning ways.
>
>
>
> In other words this way realizes they are corresponding – living lives
> that weave around **each other**within ever extending ways.
>
>
>
> To practise participant observation is to join in correspondence with
> others with whom we **learn** as a travelling that goes forward rather
> than backward in time. As such, this way of travelling is the very opposite
> of ethnography.
>
>
>
> Greg, I wonder if this is merely shamanic moves.  I **hear** the melody
> of the concept **mitsein** flowing [con]currently within this stream of
> thought, this way of travelling.
>
>
>
> I hear Tim wanting to **limit** ethnography and what it does. To
> recognize how it is the opposite of correspondence.  We can write **about**
> our experiences **afterwards** and this is ethnography. A valid practise.
> What Tim is saying that this is **not** living **attentionally** which is
> the humaning way forward.
>
> A fascinating ex/ploration of **mit/sein** or being with the other that
> is deeper grounded than notions of being **side by side**. It is a deeper
> ground within a mutual **world** of humaning.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
>
>
> *From: *Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Friday, May 13, 2016 12:17 PM
> *To: *eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: [Sed-l] "Should anthropology break up
> withethnography?"
>
>
>
> That's funny, I didn't know that Anthropology and Ethnography were a
>
> couple! I thought I saw that Anthropology's facebook page lists its
>
> relationship to ethnography as: "It's complicated."
>
>
>
> (seems like sometimes in the 80's when it changed to this from its former
>
> status: "in a relationship with Ethnography").
>
>
>
> But seriously, I get both sides of the argument here (and it is worth
>
> looking at the free pdf of Ingold's essay:
>
> http://www.haujournal.org/index.php/hau/article/view/hau4.1.021).
>
>
>
> I think what Ingold is trying to do is, on the one hand, to shave off the
>
> bad parts of what anthropologists have been doing in the past and to throw
>
> it into the conceptual bin of "ethnography" (or maybe "merely descriptive
>
> ethnography"). On the other hand, he is taking all the good bits of what
>
> anthropology could be and throwing it into the conceptual bin called
>
> "participant observation." Ingold's move is really more of a disciplinary
>
> shamanic move than it is necessarily an intellectual move (although these
>
> aren't much different!). It is an attempt to do a kind of conceptual
>
> cleansing, a rite of purification in which one seeks toeliminate the
>
> profane (e.g., all the stuff that Writing Cultures and Fabian and others
>
> have brought up about the terrors of ethnography, schizotemprality,
>
> othering, silencing subalterns, and so on) while at the same time seizing
>
> upon the sacred (i.e., the real possibilites that participant observation
>
> holds, particularly cultivating the practice of empathy). This is necessary
>
> because anthropology must adapt to changing understandings of what is
>
> constituted as profane or sacred. Simply put, this is an attempt at ritual
>
> renewal.
>
>
>
> That said, I think Cook has an interesting point here in as much as she
>
> points to something that is missing, or at least not well articulated in
>
> Ingold's essay, namely, What/how does one write-up what one has
>
> participatingly observed? Ingold's essay only gives clues, "correspondence"
>
> rather than "description" seems to be the main axis that he introduces as a
>
> general guidepost to writing. But, of course, I'm not sure what he would
>
> have in mind as a write-up of participant observation that involves
>
> "correspondence" (perhaps something like Luke Eric Lassiter's collaborative
>
> ethnography?).
>
>
>
> But in the end, it seems, Ingold isn't necessarily wanting to throw out the
>
> ethnographic baby with the schizotemporal (etc.) bathwater. Instead it
>
> seems he is actually looking for a more substantial relationship between
>
> ethnography and theory (and to respond to Cook's critique: doesn't Liebow's
>
> Tally's Corner do this? Or is Liebow's ethnography merely descriptive
>
> particularism? That's an interesting question). Here, Ingold's argument
>
> slips into a much simpler argument: ethnography as descriptive
>
> particularism will not do. Instead, ethnography needs theory (e.g., he
>
> proposes that the parabola of theory and the parabola of ethnography be put
>
> face to face with each other so that they overlap and that the overlap is
>
> anthropology). Or to put this relationship a bit more simply: it's
>
> complicated.
>
>
>
> -greg
>
>
>
> On Fri, May 13, 2016 at 11:18 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> > The discussion in the blog post below ought to be relevant to all those
> on
>
> > the list who use qualitative
>
> > methods they identify as ethnographic in their work.
>
> >
>
> > mike
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Provocatively posted on the Cultural Anthropology journal Facebook page
>
> > this morning with the heading "Should anthropology break up with
>
> > ethnography?" a letter responding to a recent Tim Ingold piece.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > http://www.culanth.org/fieldsights/874-ethnography-translation
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > --
>
> >
>
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object
>
> > that creates history. Ernst Boesch
>
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>
> Assistant Professor
>
> Department of Anthropology
>
> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>
> Brigham Young University
>
> Provo, UT 84602
>
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson