RESPONSE/ ETHNOGRAPHIES AS TEXTS AND THE THIRD EYE/WEEK 2

ETHNOGRAPHIES AS TEXTS marcus and Cushman

THE THIRD EYE Fatimah Tobing Rony

Experimental ethnographies have shifted to a "me-them" form of contrast. What does Marcus/Cushman mean by this and how does this reposition the reader of ethnographies?

“Through a glass darkly” or “darkly as through a veil”

By now we know that everything we express (write, photograph or film) is tinted by our personal experience and point of view. In a film we choose what to film, how to film it and what to cut, in a photograph we choose what to frame and how to frame it and in writing the same thing. Is there a way to get closer to reality? Is it really bad to see reality through our own eyes through our own experiences? Well, even if is good or bad there is no other option that is the way we see the world. I do think is not necessarily bad. The people that choose to work with the complexity of “observable life” are helping us to understand the world. Field work, documentary work bring us closer the world around us but at the same time there are many questions and challenges to consider.

Fabian proposes what he calls the “me-them” vs the “us-them”.

“to frame cultural differences in the text by the rhetorical use of comparative contrast on a different plane of representation than in the past”

Also he talks about some sort of open conversation between the reader and the ethnographer, to open the text to discussion. The reader will no longer have a “writing lesson” like with Levi-Strauss but will help make sense of a reality.

He also talks about “dispersed authority” as a way of including native text. He also poses the problem of the translation of these texts. At the same time this makes me think of the reading "the third eye". In this open discussion there could always be someone with a third eye to help overcome misconceptions.