Week 3 Makeup Response

In his Mimesis and Alterity, Taussig's claim that mimesis has the capacity to transform both mimer and that which is mimed presents intriguing potentials for a means of assuming coevalness between subjects that moves beyond merely "communicating." The mimetic faculty, he argues, enables one not only to "make models, [and] explore differences," tasks which parallel Fabian's critiqued ethnographic method of denying coevalness, but also to "yield into and become Other" (xiii). This 'becoming Other' resembles in my mind the task ethnographers often set out for themselves of assuming an indigenous perspective in order to operate within a cultural framework, and requires an altered subjectivity in the process of communicating. The mimetic faculty, however, involves both objectification ("making models") and the sharing of time (to "become Other"). Taken in this light, the practice of mimesis, as Taussig himself argues, must be undertaken cautiously.

Firstly, one must wonder if the process of sharing time necessarily involves an objectification of some sort. Must one first "make models" of Others before she can become them? Here, Derrida's notion of arche-writing's denial of full presence affects even the least objectifying project of communication. If, in order to become Other, one must first make a model of that Other, then sharing time is at its core a process of making a 'accurate' model, of constructing another culture as an intellectual model, which, if followed well enough, will enable the ethnographer to refine the model by testing its usefulness in communicating. Such a paradox makes one wonder: if this 'sharing of time' is only attainable in so much as it is first denied, why attempt to achieve it?

Secondly, if we accept Taussig's claim that mimesis in fact has the capacity to alter that which is mimed, must we become more weary of the potential for an ethnographic coevalness to be even more successful at transforming ethnographic 'informants' into the ethnographer's imagined Other than merely treating them as objects stuck in a static, earlier Time?

Taking these two concerns together, 'sharing time' appears as a project to be undertaken with a specific, transformative aim in mind. Fabian's call for ethnographers to struggle to grant coevalness to their informants in all stages of studying them appears incomplete. The motivations behind 'giving the gift' of coevalness must be interrogated.