The Man Who Sold the World
While ‘Global Ethnography’ provides us with more interesting stories than that told in last week’s reading (sheesh!), the methodological issues stay the same. I’ll admit, even I found myself curious to find out just how the connection between the micro-practices that traditionally (and, seemingly, necessarily) have been the realm of ethnography, and the macro-structures that partly make out the demonic concept of ‘Globalization.’
In the introduction, Michael Burawoy complains that the neo-institutionalists “leave ethnographers, who work from the ground upward, without theoretical tools to delve into the connections between micro-practices and macro-structures.” (3) The authors set out to remedy this, and, as far as I can tell, they do an excellent job at it. Without losing sight of the individual and local experiences, they shed light on the ‘new’ localities, the units of analysis break free from national boundaries and even from the constraints of time. However, to evaluate the success of this project, it seems necessary to have a clear understanding of what ‘good’ ethnography is (I’m still not clear on whether there are any formal guidelines set up by some sort of global Lollipop Guild, but from last week’s discussion, it seems clear that there is such a thing as ‘bad’ ethnography, and, hence, there should be something deemed as ‘good’ ethnography.).
One of the perks of being an ethnographer seems to be the right to chose freely who the most deserving underdog to rescue is. While ethnography may not require attempts of objectivity – or even believe that objectivity can or should be achieved – there is a self-righteous tone that is, at the very least, annoying at times. Don’t get me wrong, I find this book brilliant, but I still at times find myself asking, how is this not just journalism? No offense to journalists intended, of course. In the case of Hungarian welfare mothers, for instance, Lynne Haney sets out to investigate the impact of IMF and World Bank demands on the formerly socialist welfare system in Hungary. Like any good investigative journalist, she finds her data in historical records and in interactions with contemporary welfare caseworkers. The looming shadow of the ‘neo-liberal’ agenda is constantly present, and sometimes I find myself wondering if not Mr. Burns is hiding in the background, rubbing his hands while wheezing a delighted “Eeexcellent!”
I hope you will forgive my KKV-ishness, but I find it difficult to break free from the standards I have been fed since, well, the beginning of my conscious life (so since about five years ago). I find it difficult to swallow the normative elements so clearly embraced in the ethnographic approaches we have seen examples of here. I may agree with many of the not-so-hidden views of the authors, but I am nevertheless bothered by the flaunting of them: “Armed with neoliberal economic theory, these men in expensive suits from the IMF and World Bank spanned the globe, counseling governments about ‘appropriate’ levels of social spending.” (51) Does anyone doubt who the bad guys are here? Furthermore, there seems to be no restrictions in data selection; no attempts to avoid cherry picking are apparently needed: “In this fieldwork I focused primarily on those who were the most serious about their work, the most productive…I find that my work appeals most to those men whose life-worlds support my thesis.” (75) Ok. So in order to find support for my thesis, I set out to find those whose stories will support my thesis. What is the standard here? Is it possible to discern some general guidelines for ethnography, or does pretty much anything go? If the latter is the case, is the book we just read an outstanding work of science, or is it an excellent piece of investigative journalism?
In the introduction, Michael Burawoy complains that the neo-institutionalists “leave ethnographers, who work from the ground upward, without theoretical tools to delve into the connections between micro-practices and macro-structures.” (3) The authors set out to remedy this, and, as far as I can tell, they do an excellent job at it. Without losing sight of the individual and local experiences, they shed light on the ‘new’ localities, the units of analysis break free from national boundaries and even from the constraints of time. However, to evaluate the success of this project, it seems necessary to have a clear understanding of what ‘good’ ethnography is (I’m still not clear on whether there are any formal guidelines set up by some sort of global Lollipop Guild, but from last week’s discussion, it seems clear that there is such a thing as ‘bad’ ethnography, and, hence, there should be something deemed as ‘good’ ethnography.).
One of the perks of being an ethnographer seems to be the right to chose freely who the most deserving underdog to rescue is. While ethnography may not require attempts of objectivity – or even believe that objectivity can or should be achieved – there is a self-righteous tone that is, at the very least, annoying at times. Don’t get me wrong, I find this book brilliant, but I still at times find myself asking, how is this not just journalism? No offense to journalists intended, of course. In the case of Hungarian welfare mothers, for instance, Lynne Haney sets out to investigate the impact of IMF and World Bank demands on the formerly socialist welfare system in Hungary. Like any good investigative journalist, she finds her data in historical records and in interactions with contemporary welfare caseworkers. The looming shadow of the ‘neo-liberal’ agenda is constantly present, and sometimes I find myself wondering if not Mr. Burns is hiding in the background, rubbing his hands while wheezing a delighted “Eeexcellent!”
I hope you will forgive my KKV-ishness, but I find it difficult to break free from the standards I have been fed since, well, the beginning of my conscious life (so since about five years ago). I find it difficult to swallow the normative elements so clearly embraced in the ethnographic approaches we have seen examples of here. I may agree with many of the not-so-hidden views of the authors, but I am nevertheless bothered by the flaunting of them: “Armed with neoliberal economic theory, these men in expensive suits from the IMF and World Bank spanned the globe, counseling governments about ‘appropriate’ levels of social spending.” (51) Does anyone doubt who the bad guys are here? Furthermore, there seems to be no restrictions in data selection; no attempts to avoid cherry picking are apparently needed: “In this fieldwork I focused primarily on those who were the most serious about their work, the most productive…I find that my work appeals most to those men whose life-worlds support my thesis.” (75) Ok. So in order to find support for my thesis, I set out to find those whose stories will support my thesis. What is the standard here? Is it possible to discern some general guidelines for ethnography, or does pretty much anything go? If the latter is the case, is the book we just read an outstanding work of science, or is it an excellent piece of investigative journalism?
posted by Hardig at 12:11 PM
3 Comments:
I agree with much of what has been said in relation to the sketchiness, shall we say, of not just the methodology of ethnography itself (last week’s conversation) but also the quality of these particular ethnographic pieces (both this and last week’s conversations). It appears that our main concern is the subjectivity of the texts which seem to undermine the very assertions the author strives to persuade the reader of, the reader who, fairly enough, persistently searches for “knowledge.” I would argue that this is a separate weakness from what others pointed out with regards to the misanalysis stemming from “normative assumptions” about a never-existing glorified past (most apparent in the Hungarian welfare and the San Franciscan Recyclers cases). In the long run the two points of weaknesses are probably related, as the methodology arguably allows certain unwarranted inferences. For the time being though I think we can separate the two since one is clearly methodological and the other substantive.
But in the spirit of attempting to defend, or at least understand, these global ethnographic projects, I’d like to resurrect two questions posed earlier. The first, from our Weber session, What is the role of the social scientist in the political project of achieving ultimate ends? The second question, from our Orr session posed by Bea, How does this bias compare to the bias of running regressions to observe correlations? It’s clear that global ethnographers aren’t interested in having the final say or reaching the ultimate end on any of these topics, or, at least they purport to not be so interested! Burowoy conveys this best in the final chapter, whereas the ethnographies, I agree, are less than satisfactory in messaging the kind of historical and theoretical ambivalence that a “global postmodern” so desires. Their efforts then must really be understood within the framework of a knowledge creation resistance, where knowledge is defined and evaluated either by objectivity, truthfulness, or even usefulness. In other words, ethnographers are really just telling stories. And by doing so, they want to challenge us to admit that we, and the social scientists we aspire to become, are also just telling stories.
The next question, of course, is why should this be acceptable. As Bea says, “…I feel like my work at least needs to stand up to the application of some degree of rigor beyond intuition.” Regression research is safely housed within the architecture of a mathematical logic which for most of us is not subjective nor perspectival. But if we’re going to take Searle seriously, which we don’t have to, then we can’t take this status of numbers and their attendant logic for granted. OK, now I’ll do what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I met Searle, which is to put him next to Derrida, the latter spent his life explaining that:
“There are thus two interpretations of interpretation, of structure, of sign, of freeplay. The one seeks to decipher, dreams of deciphering, a truth or an origin which is free from freeplay and from the order of the sign, and lives like an exile the necessity of interpretation. The other, which is no longer turned toward the origin, affirms freeplay and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the name man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology-in other words, through the history of all of his history-has dreamed of full presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end of the game.”
["Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, pp 278-294.]
More importantly, he continues, same essay, “I do not believe that today there is any question of choosing-in the first place because here we are in a region (let's say, provisionally, a region of historicity).” Ethnography makes this explicit. This is true for all of the global ethnographers—extraneously in the case of Blum but intrinsically for all ethnographers, who don’t create their “subjects” nor a priori choose how to understand their “subjects.” In other words, there is no possibility of choosing an angle from which we could launch our analysis, i.e., tell the story from our point of view, that would meet the kind of criteria we nevertheless seek.
More depressing than I thought. Maybe someone will disagree and make this less depressing. I guess at this point we can resort to asking questions of usefulness, i.e., bracketing the problematic between truth-value and use-value, if it’s not True, is it at least utilitarian-useful?
In any case, this is a round-a-bout way of saying that I think ethnography is totally great and legit as (anti) knowledge-creation.
I agree with much of what has been said in relation to the sketchiness, shall we say, of not just the methodology of ethnography itself (last week’s conversation) but also the quality of these particular ethnographic pieces (both this and last week’s conversations). It appears that our main concern is the subjectivity of the texts which seem to undermine the very assertions the author strives to persuade the reader of, the reader who, fairly enough, persistently searches for “knowledge.” I would argue that this is a separate weakness from what others pointed out with regards to the misanalysis stemming from “normative assumptions” about a never-existing glorified past (most apparent in the Hungarian welfare and the San Franciscan Recyclers cases). In the long run the two points of weaknesses are probably related, as the methodology arguably allows certain unwarranted inferences. For the time being though I think we can separate the two since one is clearly methodological and the other substantive.
But in the spirit of attempting to defend, or at least understand, these global ethnographic projects, I’d like to resurrect two questions posed earlier. The first, from our Weber session, What is the role of the social scientist in the political project of achieving ultimate ends? The second question, from our Orr session posed by Bea, How does this bias compare to the bias of running regressions to observe correlations? It’s clear that global ethnographers aren’t interested in having the final say or reaching the ultimate end on any of these topics, or, at least they purport to not be so interested! Burowoy conveys this best in the final chapter, whereas the ethnographies, I agree, are less than satisfactory in messaging the kind of historical and theoretical ambivalence that a “global postmodern” so desires. Their efforts then must really be understood within the framework of a knowledge creation resistance, where knowledge is defined and evaluated either by objectivity, truthfulness, or even usefulness. In other words, ethnographers are really just telling stories. And by doing so, they want to challenge us to admit that we, and the social scientists we aspire to become, are also just telling stories.
The next question, of course, is why should this be acceptable. As Bea says, “…I feel like my work at least needs to stand up to the application of some degree of rigor beyond intuition.” Regression research is safely housed within the architecture of a mathematical logic which for most of us is not subjective nor perspectival. But if we’re going to take Searle seriously, which we don’t have to, then we can’t take this status of numbers and their attendant logic for granted. OK, now I’ll do what I’ve been wanting to do ever since I met Searle, which is to put him next to Derrida, the latter spent his life explaining that:
“There are thus two interpretations of interpretation, of structure, of sign, of freeplay. The one seeks to decipher, dreams of deciphering, a truth or an origin which is free from freeplay and from the order of the sign, and lives like an exile the necessity of interpretation. The other, which is no longer turned toward the origin, affirms freeplay and tries to pass beyond man and humanism, the name man being the name of that being who, throughout the history of metaphysics or of ontotheology-in other words, through the history of all of his history-has dreamed of full presence, the reassuring foundation, the origin and the end of the game.”
["Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences." Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, pp 278-294.]
More importantly, he continues, same essay, “I do not believe that today there is any question of choosing-in the first place because here we are in a region (let's say, provisionally, a region of historicity).” Ethnography makes this explicit. This is true for all of the global ethnographers—extraneously in the case of Blum but intrinsically for all ethnographers, who don’t create their “subjects” nor a priori choose how to understand their “subjects.” In other words, there is no possibility of choosing an angle from which we could launch our analysis, i.e., tell the story from our point of view, that would meet the kind of criteria we nevertheless seek.
At this point we might resort to asking questions of usefulness, i.e., bracketing the problematic between truth-value and use-value, if it’s not True, is it at least utilitarian-useful?
In any case, this is a round-a-bout way of saying that I think ethnography is totally great and legit as (anti) knowledge-creation.
Perhaps the distinction between ethnography and immersion journalism, such as George Orwell's "Down and Out in London and Paris" is less about process and more about the semantics of the disciplines. As we've seen through our first year there are rigid barriers between subfields of the same disciplines that limit the transfer of knowledge, methodology, and theory, and these barriers are even greater between disciplines. So perhaps it's mearly a semantic difference.
With reference to this incredibly interesting and insightful book... I found the authors' arguments compelling when they discussed their approach to linking ethnographic research to globalization research and theorizing. And I even agree with many of their concluions about the neoliberal ideology embedded in the hegemonic globalization discourse. But I had a big problem with the failure to seperate researcher from activist, scientist from participant. I understand the need to get inside the world that an ethnographer studies, to build trust, and to create connections so that communcation can occur naturlly and honestly. But my predilection to agree with the under- and overlaying trends of globalization and localization, I find, for example, Maren Klawiter's claim that "it never occured to [her] to srive for distance or even to attempt a stance of objectivity and ... perhaps erred more on the side of participation than observation" (p. 300) highly suspect for many reasons. First, as participant she has an agenda that may nnot dovetail with her agenda as a researcher, an ethnographer, a scientist. Second, it diminishes the strength of the overall argument of the book when she and others, like Steven Lopez (who worked as a union activist/organizer) and Sean O Riain (who worked at Womble and thus was dependent on his income from that source), do not maintain any distance from the object of study. In this case, the question should probably juxtapose ETHNOGRAPHY with AUTOBIOGRAPHY rather than journalism.
Having read some amazingly insightful works that speak to the mores I remember nourishing while studying at Berkeley, I nonetheless find the need to create some space between the researcher and their subject. Orr, for example, shadowed the technicians but was not a technician dependent on Xerox for his job or paycheck. he had experience as a technician that allowed him to related and connect with his subjects, but at the same time he maintained a distance since he was not actually part of the organization or the team. This seems like a better approach in that it makes him seem less invested in the outcomes of his research and more able to see his objects and subjects of study from a distance as well as up close and personal.
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