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Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology (review)

Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology (review) book and media reviews that can be variably in cooperation or conflict; recognizing that, like all social relations, colonial situations can be a matter of negotiation rather than simple oppression; attending to emergent cultural forms; and placing all studies in a comparative historical context" (Ogan, 194). For the most part, the book is effective. Certainly, the data presented are fascinating; the stories told, often compelling. Nonetheless, these articles remain somewhat too sketchy for my ethnographic tastes. None accomplishes a fully convincing anthropology of colonial situations. To be sure, such an accomplishment would be difficult in a short piece. After all-- and as the volume implies--to be fully convincing means evidencing as well as articulating three related processes: (1) the ongoing social engagements between culturally different peoples; (2) the complex cultural understandings and misunderstandings that, sometimes, could serve the different interests of all; (3) the various manners in which the colonists (granted, a diverse bunch) did, in fact, frequently wield their greater power to serve themselves (including by propounding their ideas about development) rather than to serve the locals (diverse as well). Many of the articles successfully evidence only one--and not the range--of these processes. And (somewhat correspondingly), the http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Contemporary Pacific University of Hawai'I Press

Ethnographic Artifacts: Challenges to a Reflexive Anthropology (review)

The Contemporary Pacific , Volume 15 (1) – Feb 10, 2003

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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-9464
Publisher site
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Abstract

book and media reviews that can be variably in cooperation or conflict; recognizing that, like all social relations, colonial situations can be a matter of negotiation rather than simple oppression; attending to emergent cultural forms; and placing all studies in a comparative historical context" (Ogan, 194). For the most part, the book is effective. Certainly, the data presented are fascinating; the stories told, often compelling. Nonetheless, these articles remain somewhat too sketchy for my ethnographic tastes. None accomplishes a fully convincing anthropology of colonial situations. To be sure, such an accomplishment would be difficult in a short piece. After all-- and as the volume implies--to be fully convincing means evidencing as well as articulating three related processes: (1) the ongoing social engagements between culturally different peoples; (2) the complex cultural understandings and misunderstandings that, sometimes, could serve the different interests of all; (3) the various manners in which the colonists (granted, a diverse bunch) did, in fact, frequently wield their greater power to serve themselves (including by propounding their ideas about development) rather than to serve the locals (diverse as well). Many of the articles successfully evidence only one--and not the range--of these processes. And (somewhat correspondingly), the

Journal

The Contemporary PacificUniversity of Hawai'I Press

Published: Feb 10, 2003

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