Anthropology: A Science of the Non-event?

There is no ethnography without the event; it is the very stuff of ethnography. However, the problem is how to think the event. How to think the event without this being the occasion for ushering in all those tired and saturated anthropological notions that fence-in and explain the event (a ritual,...

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Veröffentlicht in:Cultural studies review 2010-09, Vol.16 (2), p.102-121
1. Verfasser: Morgan, Hamish
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:There is no ethnography without the event; it is the very stuff of ethnography. However, the problem is how to think the event. How to think the event without this being the occasion for ushering in all those tired and saturated anthropological notions that fence-in and explain the event (a ritual, a performance, a meeting, a gathering and so on) as if they were unmediated, objective signifiers that have the effect of 'construct[ing] another society as unified, "over there" objective characterised by "certain distinctive beliefs"'. The problem is how to resist the description of the event as if it were a stable signifier of identity; as an objective reference for a communal essence that the ethnographer 'works out' and reveals. The problem is how to keep the surprise of the event working beyond a reduction to the self-same and secured presentation of knowledge.The first part of this essay considers ways to draw upon the transformative potential of thinking the 'event'. I then use this to sketch the possibility of developing another kind of ethnographic writing attuned to the relation with others as the point of contact, contingency and communication. This I will conceptualise as writing 'community'. This has developed from my research work with Aboriginal people, especially the Jackman family, in central Western Australia.
ISSN:1837-8692
1446-8123
1837-8692
DOI:10.5130/csr.v16i2.1696