A thrice-told tale: feminism, postmodernism & ethnographic responsibility // Review

• Published in: Resources for feminist research 1993, Vol.22 (1/2), p.37
• Main Author: Wolf, Margery
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Clifford, George; Credibility; Ethnology; Feminism; Narratives; Politics; Postmodernism; Reading; Rhetorical figures; Women
• ISSN: 0707-8412

In the commentaries, [Margery Wolf] makes two key criticisms of the postmodern trend in ethnography and of the largely male - dominated wave of "experimental" ethnographic texts. First, she suggests that the conjunctures of power and knowledge and the discursive strateg ies of authority that the postmodernists have so recently discovered in the ethnographic canon, h ave long been the target of feminist critiques in anthropology and other disciplines. Once th ese discoveries are described in postmodern terms they are given much greater credibility and presti ge than is usually granted to comparable feminist work, of which the postmodernists remain largely ignorant. Secondly, she finds the experimental ethnographic mode flawed in the extent to which it further mystifies the production of ethnographies. Despite the stated purpos e of multiplying points of view and introducing other voices, Wolf argues that the resulting "exp erimental" text, with its refusal of realist tropes, is comprehensible only to an initiated few. Feminists who "speak" postmodernism can translate in either direction, but the experimental wo rk itself is inaccessible to the majority of readers, whether feminist or anthropologist. Wolf makes the construction of the authoritative voice of the anthropologis t apparent to the reader by allowing her to create her own juxtapositions and arrive at her own in terpretations of the various texts. The juxtaposition, for example, of the short story written i n 1960 while working with her husband, with the 1990 academic article, reflects Wolf's transi tion from "anthropologist's wife" to "anthropologist." This narrative shift marks the aut hor's own mastery of anthropological discourse. While Wolf acknowledges both narrative positions as part of her "self," I wondered what the choice of one over the other at different moments me ant for Wolf as an anthropologist and a feminist? Is one voice more personal than political, and if so how might these positions be brought together both in the field and in the text? In each of her various positions, Wolf can clearly identify and communicate with other women in Peihotien -- Mrs. [Tan] as failed shaman or Wu Chieh as neophyte anthropologist.