Joel Manfredi

English 5870

Dr. De Vries

Paul Stoller–Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story

This reading from Paul Stoller seems relevant because it gets back to the idea of writing ethnography in somewhat of a memoir form.  Yet Stoller does a great job of reminding us of the balance between objectivity and subjectivity in his writing.  From living with the people in Niger, to meeting with Jean Rouch to talk about the village of Wanzerbe, Stoller keeps getting back to what it means to write good ethnography.

Stoller says, “Even if you sensuously describe the physical attributes of the ethnographic locale and sensitively construct the character of the people who live there, you have only met the necessary, but not the sufficient conditions of memorable ethnography.  For the latter, ethnographers as well as their characters need to grapple with the things most fundamentally human-love and loss, fear and courage, fate and compassion-deep issues that connect readers to the people they encounter in ethnographic texts”(180-181).  Stoller argues then, that a certain amount of subjectivity is not only needed, but necessary if the ethnographer wants their text to be memorable.  This gets back to the need of human beings to feel a connection with other human beings in an innate sense.  We all have that need and reading an ethnographic text that includes all of the attributes Stoller mentions, such as “love and loss, fear and courage,” gives the reader a chance to relate that text to our lives.  A chance to find the relevance in a text that may include people from the other side of the globe yet speak to a greater sense of humanity that encompasses us all.

Stoller mentions the book The Reindeer People, by Piers Vitebsky.  In doing his research, Stoller mentions that Vitebsky lives with these people, learns their language, and essentially becomes a part of the Siberian people he is studying.  Becoming immersed in their culture, or, being a participant-observer as opposed to just an observer, is the best way that Stoller thinks Vitebsky can then portray the people to the rest of the world.  “By following a winding, time-tested path of social and emotional implication, Vitebsky produces a profoundly humanistic portrait of the Eveny.  Such humanism is, I think, the central ingredient in the recipe for producing great ethnography”(181).  The important word that Stoller uses here is “great” when referring to Vitebsky’s ethnographic study.  Stoller isn’t making the argument that ethnography can’t be effective when one doesn’t participate, but that in order for the ethnography to become great, to withstand the tests of time, and to have a greater meaning to the whole world… the researcher needs to find a way to “humanize” the experience.  Only then will the lives of people living in Siberia resonate with the lives of people living in different world locales.