Commentary Ten

Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story, by Paul Stoller

This is a good article to read to conclude our study of “ethnography.” Although, I can’t speak for you when I say that, because this is just the beginning of the study of ethnography for me. The classroom observations I have made this semester have taught me to look differently at, not only the classroom, but the world in general. For example, today when I sat in a meeting I was not just listening to the other people in the meeting; I was observing them. My perspective, or view of life, has changed this semester from “participant” to “observer” and from observer to “writer.” I think this is the main idea that Stoller is attempting to communicate to his readers. Stoller begins this article with a vivid description of a village in the country of Niger, in Africa:

It was a hazy, late afternoon in the town of Tillaberi, Niger. From our vantage atop a wind-carved sand dune, we could see the Niger River snaking southward, its water glistening in the golden afternoon light. The clang of bells announced the arrival of a long line of cows and sheep, returning from a day in the bush. Clouds of dust formed in their wake. The rhythmic thump of pestles pounding mortars echoed in the dry air as women transformed millet seeds to millet flour, which would soon be boiled into a nutritious paste that would be topped with a spicy peanut sauce. (178)

This narrative conveys an image of a village in Niger. When I read this narrative I felt transported to this place or “locality” (180). Stoller uses elements we have read about in the article by Bonnie Sunstein, Culture on the Page: Experience, Rhetoric, and Aesthetics in Ethnographic Writing (Week Five), “As I give them life on the page, I freeze them into time and space, depositing black words on a white paper backdrop for a reader none of us knows. (Sunstein, 177). Stoller “deposits black words on a white paper backdrop” in order to preserve a snapshot of what Tillaberi was like at whatever point in time he observed that scene.

I think now I can safely say that “ethnography” is storytelling: Stoller has illuminated the concept of “storytelling” in this article, Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story. As we write our classroom ethnographies we should be cognizant of what Stoller is telling us in this article. Until I read Stoller, I had never considered ethnography as the “bedrock of anthropology” (179). Ethnography is the recording of history. In their telling and retelling, they link the past, present, and future (189). How do we know what it was like in the past without recording the past for posterity? The answer is that we won’t know where we have been, historically, until we record our history. Stoller suggests that ethnography is a way to achieve this recording of history.

According to Stoller there is no “one best way” to write ethnography, “Each body of ethnographic material is unique and therefore requires a specifically contoured textual strategy… there are key elements that are necessary if ethnographers want their works to be read by a wide range of readers over a long period of time” (180). I think it is the last point he makes that bears repeating: there are key elements that are necessary if ethnographers want their works to be read by a wide range of readers over a long period of time (180). The “key” element I believe Stoller is emphasizing is the idea that ethnographies should be “readable.” He makes several references throughout the article about this point:

• One element is a sense of “locality.” When you read a memorable ethnography, the spaces-places of that book become etched in your memory. After finishing the work, you might say: “I felt like I was there. I felt the pulse of the sun and the itch of dust in my eyes.” (180)
• Deep issues that connect readers to the people they encounter in ethnographic texts. (181)
• The memoir is also personal, which can make readers feel like they are getting a “real” story presented in accessible prose. (182)
• The greatest strength of these memoirs (full-length illness memoirs) is their penchant for storytelling. (183)
• No matter the subject, the best illness memoirs are those that use narrative. (184)

I think this means ethnographies should be read! One way to achieve a readership is to write the ethnography in a story based fashion: Stoller alludes to memoir and narrative to achieve this result.

Although it is a very slippery slope, memoir is something that many anthropologists may want to pursue at some point on their path. (182) Memoir is something that we ALL may want to pursue on our path; our life path. I have been thinking lately that when I am no longer here who will pass on my history? As I get older I realize my mortality. I’m not trying to be morose, just realistic. Unless your ancestors left some type of records of your family history, what record will there be about your family? Several years ago I contacted one of my relatives; a distant cousin on my father’s side of the family. This cousin was an older woman who had quite a bit of time on her hands and she had researched the “Calou” family tree back to about one hundred years ago. Her genealogical research was impressive. But after reading this article by Stoller I know now what was missing in my family tree: the missing component was the “narrative.” The one hundred years of history would have “come to life” with the addition of some narrative about the faceless names on the genealogy tree. As I get older I realize now that it is difficult to record a family history; family history is ethnography. But, I can see the importance of creating a family ethnography or memoir. Memoir and ethnography are the “recording of history” or personal anthropology.

In conclusion, Stoller presents good evidence for the use of memoir and narrative as a form to write an ethnography. But I believe the main idea of this article to be that “ethnography” is recorded history. As Stoller says, “Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story” (189). The ethnographies we have written are narratives of history; a history of a certain classroom at a certain point in time. One literary device that may be considered is the use of the narrative, due to its additive aspect of storytelling.