postmodern anthropology

is a form of critique that has led to new objects and new styles of research and writing.

That critique has legitimated new objects and new styles of research and writing, as well as a shift from the historical purpose of anthropological research toward its long-standing but underdeveloped project of cultural critique. It has also tended to reorient the relevant interdisciplinary interests of anthropologist toward the humanities, as it became obvious that the most energetic thinking about culture, especially in cross-cultural and transcultural frameworks, had been coming from such literary scholars as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha. (386)

is an ethos characterized by the discipline's contextualization in the history of colonialism, particularly during the periods of decolonization for the british and of the vietnam war for the Americans.

(2) the contextualization of anthropology in the history of colonialism, particularly during the periods of decolonization for the British and of the Vietnam War for the Americans...

is an ethos characterized by the exposure of the 'messiness' of fieldwork as a social science method through an outpouring of 'trial-and-tribulation,' 'confessional' accounts.

In anthropology, the ethos of postmodernism has intersected specifically with the strong critique of ethnographic rhetoric and writing that powerfully brought together and rearticulated three separate strands of critique. These strands, which had been developing in Anglo-American anthropology since the 1960s and even before then, included ( 1) the exposure of the 'messiness' of fieldwork as a social science method through an outpouring of 'trial-and-tribulation,' 'confessional' accounts...

is an ethos characterized by the not-yet-pointed critique from hermeneutics (and post-structuralist literary theory) of anthropological styles of interpreting language, culture, and symbols.

(3) the not-yet-pointed critique from hermeneutics of anthropological styles of interpreting language, culture, and symbols. Influenced by literary theory (as influenced in turn by post-structuralism), by the kind of rhetorical critique of history developed by Hayden White, and by a renewed interest in the history of anthropology itself. . . (386)

is concerned with cultural translation... namely with the fact that in any attempt to interpret or explain another cultural subject, a surplus of difference always remains, partly created by the process of ethnographic communication itself.

The following are three of the most important effects that key features associated with postmodernism have had on current anthropological practice: a. Cultural translation, which is what ethnography is, never fully assimilates difference. In any attempt to interpret or explain another cultural subject, a surplus of difference always remains, partly created by the process of ethnographic communication itself. Thus radical, intractable difference, as in Lyotard's notion of the differend, confronts the idea of difference in the liberal concept of culture which has dominated Anglo-American anthropology and which historically triumphed (in parallel with the pervasiveness of late capitalism's consumer culture) over the concept of culture that developed within an earlier, evolutionary frame of social thought.

is concerned with producing messy texts that provide new descriptions of old realities and, in so doing, to critically displace sets of representations that no longer seem to account for the worlds we thought we knew, or at least could name.

I find them interesting as symptoms of a struggle to produce, within the given formats and practices of analytic writing, unexpected connections and thus new descriptions of old realities and, in so doing, to critically displace sets of representations that no longer seem to account for the worlds we thought we knew, or at least could name. (391)

is concerned with producing messy texts which arise simply from confronting the remarkable space/ time compression that defines the conditions of peoples and cultures globally.

There are at least three other motivations for producing 'messy texts': 1. These texts arise simply from confronting the remarkable space/ time compression that defines the conditions of peoples and cultures globally (this is, of course, the defining empirical feature of the condition of postmodernity for such theorist as David Harvey and Anthony Giddens). This raises the problem of giving an account of everyday life in which what was formerly incommensurable becomes related or at least contiguous, with the global, or aspects of the global process, now encompassed by the local, and purely local meanings no longer a sufficient object of study. (391)

is concerned with producing messy texts which insist on their own openendedness, incompleteness, and uncertainty which reflect a concern with an ethics of dialogue and partial knowledge, a sense that a work is incomplete without critical, and differently positioned, responses to it by its (ideally) varied readers.

3. Messy texts are messy because they insist on their own openendedness, incompleteness, and uncertainty about how to draw a text/analysis to a close. Such open-endedness often marks a concern with an ethics of dialogue and partial knowledge, a sense that a work is incomplete without critical, and differently positioned, responses to it by its (ideally) varied readers. (391)

postmodern anthropology, n.Definitions

postmodern anthropology