Ill-Defined Problem Sets: A Discussion

[MikeF]

I've seen grad students sent to mental institutions trying to "never upset anyone" and worrying about the "inherent power imbalance between the ethnographer and the informant" .

Agreed and, BTW, that holds for doing good ethnographies as well. Even though our (Anthropologists) mission is to write ethnographies, never say never is a damn good motto for us, too, and too few use it

Yup. I've seen wanna-be ethnographers (some with tenure) go into areas and tell the locals what they "should" be doing. Thankfully, I've never had to work under any of these twits, but they are there. Most cultures recognize everything that we would call a "relationship" (there actually aren't that many different forms), even though they rate them differently. Sounds like you tagged into one that they recognized pretty well.

Hi Marc,

In grad school, I was fascinated by the subject of anthropology, but I always thought it a bit presumptious that one could believe that they could penetrate a society without making waves.

It reminds me of all the times that we had embedded reporters within our unit. Guys would put on all their tricked out "kits" around the photographers and pose hoping to get the "GI Joe" photo-shot. I imagine that it is the same for villagers when an anthropologist comes to town. Some will posture, others will exaggerate....In the end, the visitor becomes a bit of amusement outside their normal day to day life.

Sounds like my wife's version of conflict resolution ! So, the key, then, lies in the arbitrator position. It sounds like you put yourself in the place of the arbitrator in a way they weren't expecting.

Good analogy. I only wish that dealing with wives was as simple as dealing with tribal sheiks. At least the locals are from earth. Women are from Venus

Best,

Mike